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T»: - '1 COTTON MANUFACTURE
LAMB'S
TEXTILE INDUSTEIES
OF THE
UNITED STATES
EMBRACING BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN AND A HIS-
TORICAL RESUME OF THE PROGRESS OF TEXTILE MANUFACTURE
FROM THE EARLIEST RECORDS TO THE PRESENT TIME
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
JOHA^ nOWAKl) BROWN
MANAGING EDITOR
E. M. NORRIS
Volume I
BOSTON, MASS.
JAMES H. LAMB COMPANY
1911
/ ^-
SLATER EDITION is limited
to 500 registered and num-
bered sets, of which this is
Set No ^.Z.:^....
Copyright 1911
By- James H. Lamb
•S-p , Co h
INTRODUCTION
♦IT N THE early stages of the history of the modern world, the
" strongest and richest nations were the best fighters, — those
who could wrest from others what they needed, whether of food
or clothing, or shelter : the capital of a nation was the brawn and
muscle of her warriors. This was the age of destruction, other-
wise, the heroic age. But men tired of constant warfare; having
won riches, they craved ease. A new era dawned, and heralded a
softer and a wider civilization, — the age of construction. Cathe-
drals and palaces were btiilt, art in her thousand forms awoke,
men painted, and sang and wrote. Then came Caxton, the maker
of books ; men read and thought ; and thought gave birth to in-
vention. The limitless possibilities of the minds of men, as they
studied the organic principles of form and motion and applied
them to their uses, ushered in a new age, — the age of production.
The history of human endeavor in the early stages of manu-
facturing reads like an Eastern fairy tale, when the Sons of In-
dustry awoke the Geni of Tvfachinery and compelled him to do
their bidding. The story is human, too,, and though told in the
tersest way, one may read between the lines a history of the
heart; of courage in the face of difhculties, of patient persever-'
ance in spite of all obstacles, of self-denial, and even of privations
cheerfully borne in order that the object in view might be ac-
complished. So, one by one, were the marvels of textile ma-
chinery wrought with patient endeavor by those who are among
the great benefactors of mankind. The capital of each nation
lies now in her industries, in the brawn and muscle of her
workers, not of her fighters.
The industries of a nation may be listed under two cate-
gories; those which furnish luxuries, and those which are es-
sentially necessary. While the first may be productive of im-
mense wealth, may furnish employment to a great number of
(iii) ^
3 3
mil imj^^
iv INTRODUCTION
persons, and so in a measure be essential to the well-being and
prosperity of a nation as a whole, the second are absolutely
indispensable to the life and integrity of the state; for, lacking
them, in great internal crises, nations would be dependent on
foreign countries for their supplies of common necessaries.
First under the head of the latter must be noted the textile
industries, as being of vast importance in all civilized countries.
In fact, the amount of the textile manufactures of a country
would appear to be a criterion of its prosperity. Spain, in her
period of decadence, has witnessed the declination of the spinning
and weaving industries which had made her a powerful and
wealthy nation under the Moors and under the first Catholic
kings; Japan, on the other hand, which is marching with giant
strides toward the highest civilization, realizes that in order to
keep pace with modern ]:)rogress she must look to her manufac-
tures and follow the example of the United States and Europe,
and of India, also, we may add, in augmenting her textile in-
dustries.
At the head of the textile manufactures of the world we
must place cotton, as much for its diversity of production as for
its amount; for no one article of manufacture so dominates the
prosperity of the world at large as does the product of the
wonderful plant gossypium. For this reason the initial volumes
of this series are devoted to cotton, as being by far the most
important of all textile industries, especially to the United States,
which provides over sixty-nine per cent of the raw material
consumed throughout the entire world in the cotton industry.
At the outset it was the intention of the publishers to
condense within the narrow confines of a single volume the
History of the Textile Manufactures of the United States, but
although they have not deviated from their purpose of pre-
senting merely essential facts in the historical and technical
articles descriptive of the i)rogress and methods of the various
branches of the industry, and in their biographical sketches of
the leaders and the pioneers of the textile industries, and those
in the briefest manner possible, the material so kindly and
promptly sent in to them at their first request exceeded many
times the limit ihey had set, and obliged them to define a new
INTRODUCTION v
u' l^prii^^ • ■ ■
policy and to provide for the publication of a number of vol-
umes, one or more to be devoted to each particular mdustry in
the order of its importance, as cotton, wool, silk, flax, hemp and
its kindred fibres.
Innumerable books have been written regarding the kings,
warriors and statesmen of the nations, getting forth in glowing
colors their deeds and their triumphs, but little has been set down
concerning the Great Captains of Industry, of their invincible
courage and determination, and of their achievements for the
welfare of mankind. People at large know almost nothing in
regard to the vast importance of the industrial forces which
make the prosperity of the nation. But the time has now come
when the story should be told, when the people should have placed
before them an authentic history of the origin and rise of the
various industries which make the United States one of the most
prosperous and wealthy nations of the earth.
Here are no deeds of bloodshed; no lurid flame of the
havoc of war; the light upon the pages is that of a thousand
forges glowing, the rythm is that of a thousand anvils ringing,
as the swart workers produce, not weapons of destruction and
defence, but the delicate parts of mighty machines, into which
the makers have transfused, it would almost seem as one watches
them at work, some of that intelligence which they themselves
have received from the Great Source of All Intelligence. Here
are no devastated homes, no fields laid waste, no harvests de-
stroyed ; the forces of industry have verily made the waste places
to blossom, have increased the harvest a hundredfold, and filled
the land with pleasant homes for the millions of patient workers.
As for the men whose ability and enterprise and capital
have made all this possible, their best eulogy is the record of
their lives and works, which will be found within the pages of
these volumes.
The publishers and editors of this work owe a debt of
gratitude as well for the words of pleasant encouragement as
for the help that has been afforded them along every line by
hundreds whom they have approached for information concern-
ing the technicalities of the difl^erent industries which are treated
vi INTRODUCTION
in the scope of this work which the}' now present to the pubHc
in the confident assurance that their labors will be appreciated.
The authenticity of the facts concerning both men and
manufactures, as set forth in this series, has been proven beyond
a doubt, it being the pur])ose of the publishers to produce a
reliable compendium for referential purposes. To this end the
most thorough researches have been made, the work of inves-
tigation having been agreeably lightened by the cooperation of
all those who have been approached for information.
CONTENTS
PAGE
The History of Cotton Production.
Paet I. — In the United States. — Daniel C. Eoper 1-8
Paet II. — In other Countries. — E. M. ISTorris 8-16
Egyptian Cotton. — C. M. Blaisdell 17-19
Cotton Ginning. — Eevised by A. L. Smith 20-27
Transportation in its Relation to the Cotton Industry. — W.
W. Finley 28-34
Cotton Speculation in America. — Carl Geller 35-52
The Manufacture of Cotton.— E. M. Xorris-. 53-76
Combing and Carding 77-96
History of Spinning. — Wm. E. Draper 97-103
Yarn and Thread Winding.— F. H. Bishop 104-112
History of Weaving. — Revised by George Crompton 113-141
Origin and Progress of the Art of Knitting 142-153
Mercerization of Cotton. — John II. Lorimcr 154, 155
Silky Lustre of Mercerization. — Wm. AV. Crosby 156, 157
Bleaching, Dyeing and Printing. — L. Da Costa Ward 158-175
History of the Dyestuifs and Dyeing Industries, by Herman
A. Metz. . . .' 176-180
History of the. Development of the Coal Tar Dye Industry in
U. S. A.— J. F. Schcellkopf ." .'. . . 181-183
Flax : Its Cultivation and Manufacture 184-190
Hemp, Jute and Kindred Fibres 191-199
Rope and Rope-making Materials 200-215
Textile Machinery.— George O. Drainer 216-222
Evolution of the Transmission of Water Power, by Charles T.
Main .- 1 223-231
Electric Power as Applied to Textile Machinery, by Sidney B.
Paine ' 232-238
Mill Engineering.— F. W. Dean 239-244
History of Factory Fire Insurance, by Frederick Downs 245-249
Cotton Seed and its Products.— E. M. iN^orris 250-257
Biographical Sketches 258-406
Histories of Mills 407-451
vii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Samuel Slater Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
Plate 1. Cultivation of Cotton 3
Plate 2. Ginning 23
Plate 3. Transportation 33
Plate 4. Carding and Combing 77
Plate 5. Spinning ." 99
Plate 6. Winding Ill
Plate 7. Weaving 127
Plate 8. Jacqnard Loom 139
Plate 10. Printing 163
Plate 11. Flax 187
Plate 12. Hemp and Sisal 195
Amory, Arthur 375
Arlington Mills 445
Aver, Frederick 325
Ayer, James Cook 327
Beverly Cotton Mill 409
Brayton, David Anthony 331
Crapo, William W 335
Crompton, George 304
Dana Warp Mill* 433
Dana, Woodbury K 379
Dartmouth Manufacturing Corporation 441
Dean, Francis W 388
Draper Company 420
Draper, George 281
Draper, George 0 ■ 289
Draper, William F 284
Fabyan, George F 347
Goo'dall, Thomas 341
Greene, Stephen 339
Harding, Edgar 351
Hill, William H 400
Hopewell, John 358
ix
X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FACING PAGE
Histories of Mills 407-451
Jackson, Patrick Tracy 276
Lawrence, Amos A 269
Littlefield, Alfred H -365
Lowe, Arthur H 396
Lowell, Augustus 265
Lowell Machine Shop 416
Ludlow !^[anufacturing Associates 431
Lyman, Arthur T 318
Lyon, Alvin S T 406
Main, Charles T 386
Marble, Edwin T 310
McArthur, Eobert 405
Merrimack Manufacturing Company 412
Pacific Mills '. 436
Parker, Walter E 398
Parsons, Theophilus 394
Peck, Leander 11 370
Sanford Mills 448
Sayles, Frederick C 368
Seabury, Dwight 392
Shaw Stocking Company 450
Sheldon, Frank P 383
Summersby, Walter H 372
Taft, Gustavus 302
Wellington, William H 344
Whitin, John Crane 297
Whitin Machine Works 424
Whitman, William 360
THE HISTORY OF COTTON PRODUCTION
Part I — In tije Unite,d States
BY DANIEL C. ROPER
The growing of cotton has entered more extensively into the build-
ing of the United States, has exercised a greater influence upon the
character, the manners, the customs and the destinies of its people
than that of any industry. Cotton has been grown and used for cen-
turies in India and China, and even in Mexico and South America, but
it remained for this country to give the industry its commercial importance.
When the needs of a rapidly growing population demanded an increase in
the supply of raw textile material, the United States, as if by the hand of
destiny, began her slow but sure work in meeting this necessity with a fibre
which has so amply supplemented others that, by lowering the cost, it has
made it possible for the greater part of the human family to wear what
otherwise must have remained only the garb of the favored.
Introduction of cotton growing. — When Christopher Columbus dis-
covered America in 1492, he found the cotton plant growing wild, but the
earliest effort to cultivate it in the United States was in 1 621, in what is now
the state of Virginia. The seed of the first cultivated varieties probably
came from the Levant or the East Indies. It was at first planted as an
experiment and for more than a century was not seriously regarded as
a useful crop. Its cultivation during this period was confined to small
patches for domestic uses. In fact, the culture never reached large pro-
portions in Virginia, as the soil and climate made tobacco growing more
profitable. Further experiments in cotton growing in these early days
were made in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but of
course, the production in these localities was never large. Had the first
settlements and experiments been made further south, in say, Georgia or
South Carolina, where climate and soil are better suited to the plant, the
development of the industry would no doubt have been more rapid. It
was introduced into South Carolina about 17.33. The trustees of the
Georgia Grant, who received seeds from England, introduced it into
Georgia in 1734. A desposition, taken in London in 1739, for the use of
these trustees, declared, "The climate of Georgia is very healthy and the
climate and soil are very fit for raising silk, wine, and cotton, all of
which products can be raised without the aid of negroes." Subsequent
(I)
2 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
history did not bear out this assertion so far as labor is concerned. Labor
was scarce and expensive and the tedious process of separating the seed
from the fibre cost more than the Hnt was worth in the market. To provide
the necessary quantity of cheap labor to cultivate, harvest and clean the
crops, importations of slaves into the cotton growing districts were made,
and from that time forth cotton growing and slavery sustained and fostered
each other. Cotton was grown in Lx)uisiana as early as 1741, for in that
year, Dubreuil of that locality invented a machine for separating the seed
from the lint, which wonderfully stimulated <:otton growing.
The two general species of cotton grown in the United States are
upland (Gossypium Herbaceum) and sea-island (Gossypium Barbadens).
(See Plate i.)
Sea-island cotton was introduced into Georgia in 1786 by Governor
Tattnall, who secured the seed from the Bahama Islands and who en-
couraged its cultivation along the coast of that state. To Kinsey Burden
and wife, of Colleton county. South Carolina, is due the credit for its
introduction into that state about 1786, and for making the careful selection
of the black seed from which have come all of the best varieties now grown
in the United States. The first commercial quantity was grown in 1790
by William Elliott on the ground where Jean Ribault landed his first
colonists and claimed the country for France. The cultivation of this cotton
is now confined to portions of South Carolina, Florida and Georgia ; the
superiority of the product of these states being in the order in which the
states are named.
Cotton area. — The present cotton-growing region of the United States
is about 1,450 miles long from east to west and about 500 miles in width,
containing approximately 700,000 square miles, or about 445,000,000 acres.
Of this the annual cotton-producing area amounted in 191 1 to about 33,000,-
000 acres, which means that only one acre in every fourteen of the total
is devoted to cotton.
The area in which cotton was grown in the United States in 1910 is
indicated on the accompanying map. Localities producing upland cotton
only are represented by horizontal lines, and those producing sea-island or
both sea-island and upland cotton by barred lines. (See Plate i.)
Development of cotton growing. — The early development of this industry
was very slow, the first samplet of American cotton being sent to England
in 1739, or 118 years after its introduction in Virginia. Several bags were
exported from Charleston in 1747, but it was not until 1753 that there was
sufficient interest manifested in the industry to call forth a cotton premium.
In that year a citizen of Delaware offered £4 ($20) for "the most cotton
and the best cotton off one acre." The small demand for this fibre was
a drawback to the culture, the market price being frequently less than the
expense of growing, gathering and preparing it. There were no adequate
implements for cultivating and harvesting, but the greatest obstacle was a
PLATE I— Cultivation of Cotton
1. Cultivation.
2. Cultivation.
3. Unopened Roll (Uplmul Cotton).
4. Mature Cotton Boll.
5. Cotton Field.
G. Cotton Plant. American Upland.
7. Cotton Plant, American Upland.
S. Sea Island Plant.
9. Asiatic Plant.
10. Area.
JAMES H LAMB Co.
OF THE UNITED STATES 3
scarcity of labor. The following record of shipments to Liverpool in 1770
is interesting: "Ten bales of cotton from Charleston, three bales from
New York, four bags from Virginia, and three barrels from North
Carolina." In 1784 some fourteen or fifteen bales were shipped to England,
and eight of these were seized in Liverpool as being improperly entered,
on the ground that so much cotton could not have been grown in the
American Colonies. After the Revolutionary War, however, the develop-
ment was more rapid, as in 1701 the United States exfKirted the equivalent
of about 400 bales, of 500 pounds each, that being but one-tenth of the
crop of 1790. Three-fourths of this crop was grown in Georgia and
practically all of the balance in South Carolina.
The later development of the industry was greatly fostered by a better
understanding of the culture ; that "how to do, comes of doing" was found
true here. Implements for use in planting and cultivating rapidly im-
proved. The "roller gin" has already been mentioned, and improved forms
of this are still used for sea-island cotton, but the invention of the saw-gin
for upland cotton, commonly credited to Eli Whitney, marks the most im-
portant epoch in the history of cotton culture. From the invention of
this gin ire 1793, the industry advanced very rapidly. Two years later the
effectiveness of the saw-gin was wonderfully increased by the success of
Mr. James Kincaid, a resident of the district now known as Fairfield
county. South Carolina, in applying water power to the operation of the
gin. Later the application of steam power and the invention of improved
presses for baling the lint were helpful factors. As slavery had had much
to do with the development of the production of cotton, it was only natural
that the abolition of slavery should bring radical changes to the industry.
Demoralized conditions of labor following the Civil War necessitated
changes in the methods of growing cotton. Many of the large antebellum
plantations were subdivided into small farms, to be rented or to be cultivated
on the "share system." These conditions prevail generally at the present
time.
The increase in the supply of labor in the Southern States has not kept
pace in recent years with the requirements for the general industrial develop-
ment in that section, and cotton growing in some localities has been em-
barrassed thereby. However, the better prices which have been commanded
by the staple o'f late years, and the consequent ability of the grower to
pay better wages, together with the increase of conveniences for living
in the country, evidenced by the appearance of the telephone and the free
delivery of mail, are tending to check the movement of the population from
rural districts.
The use of commercial fertilizers has been a very important factor in
the development of cotton growing. Prior to the Civil War the crop was
grown continuously on the same land without any attempt to prevent the
depletion of the soil. The expensive labor which resulted from the war
4 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
made it advisable "to make two ears of corn and two blades of grass grow
where only one grew before." This condition of enforced economy made
it necessary to grow and harvest more cotton on less land and with the
least possible amount of labor. By breaking the soil to the proper depth,
it has been found that the taproot of the plant is enabled to sink deeper
into the soil and the cotton fibre is thus materially increased in length and in
uniformity. This method of deep preparation also protects the soil against
washing. It has been found to be valuable as a means of drainage in seasons
of excessive rainfall and also a proper means of preventing damage from
prolonged droughts. It is interesting to observe that the intensive system
of farming, which involves a thorough preparation of the soil and the use
•of commercial fertilizers, rotation with leguminous crops, and rapid and
intelligent cultivation, had its beginning in South Carolina about 1857.
However, the use of this system for many years was quite desultory, and
•did not, until very recently, receive general consideration.
There can be no question that from thirty to fifty per cent profit will
result from the judicious use of fertilizers; which not only increases the
size of the plant but makes 'it easier and less expensive to cultivate, adding
to the yield without increasing the labor or acreage, and actually enlarges
the climatic area within which cotton may be profitably grown. As
fertilizing hastens the maturity of the crop, it is a valuable guard against
the ravages of insects, especially the boll weevil.
Transportation facilities have also contributed to the development of
cotton growing. While many navigable streams running through the cotton
belt helped the grower to market his crop by boat in the earlier stages
of the industry, in later years railroads have offered far more satisfactory
means of transportation.
Cotton growing in the United States has been especially favored by
the character of the soil and of the climate. Perhaps nowhere else are the
conditions of heat, moisture and soil so well adapted to it. This country
holds the first rank in cotton growing, because of these factors, by a long
growing season, amplq rainfall, and a suitable season for harvesting.
The development of the cotton industry and trade of the United States
is fully set forth in the figures of the table which is shown upon page 5.
The statistics of ;the table show that there was a very rapid growth in
the production between 1790 and 1800, due very largely to the invention
■of the saw-gin; that there was aj marked decrease between i860 and 1870,
'due to the Civil War; and that since 1870 the production has gone on in-
creasing until a crop of 13,500,000 bales of 500 pounds each for the United
States and 20,000,000 bales for the world, are but reasonable and necessary
results. Of the world's suppply of cotton for mill consumption the United
States contributes about sixty-five per cent; British India, nineteen per
cent ; Egypt, seven per cent ; Russia, three per cent ; with the other
countries of the world producing the remaining six per cent.
OF THE UNITED STATES
Production, Consumption, Exports and Imports of Cotton for the
United States by Five-Year Periods Since 1790.
PRODUCTION
Consumption
(500-pound
bales)
Exports of
domestic
cotton
(soo-pound
bales)
Year
Running
bales
counting
round as
half bales
(number)
Equivalent
soo-pound
bales, gross
weight
(number)
Average
net weight
of bale
lbs.
Value of
lint per
pound,
upland ,
cotton
(centsj
Net
imports
(500-pound
bales)
1910
11,083,337
10,315,382
475
14.3
1905
10,725,602
10,804,556
482
10.9
4,877!465'
6, 975! 494
"133, 464"
1900
10,24-'>,602
10,266,527
480
9.3
3,603,516
6,860,917
116,610
1895
7,161,094
7,146,772
477
8.2
2,499,731
4,761,505
112,001
1890
8,652,597
8,562,089
473
8.6
2,604,491
5,850,219
45,580
1885
6,575,691
6,369,341
463
9.4
2,094,682
4,200,647
8,270
1880
6,605,750
6,356,998
460
11.3
1,865,922
4,453,495
5,447
1875
4,632,313
4,302,818
444
13.0
1,255,712
3,037,650
4,498
1870
4,352,317
4,024,5:27
442
17.0
1,026,583
2,922,757
1,802
1865
2,269,316
2,093,658
441
43.2
614,540
1,301,146
10,322
1860
3,849,469
3,841,416
477
13.0
841,975
615,032
1855
3,665,557
3,220,782
420
10.3
731,484
2,702,863
' 2,295
1850
2,454,442
2,136,083
416
12.1
422,626
1,854,474
330
1845
2,100,537
1,806,110
411
7.'9
363,365
1,095,116
386
1840
1,634,954
1,347,640
394
9.5
245,045
1,060,408
1,210
1835
1,360,725
1,061,821
373
16.5
184,731
847,263
427
1830
1,026,393
732,218
341
9.7
129,938
553,960
22
1825
817,308
533,473
312
12.2
124,481
409,071
79
1820
575,540
334,728
278
14.3
100,0110
249,787
427
1815
369,004
209,205
271
29.0
45,346
163,894
35
1810
286,195
177,824
297
15.5
35,565
124,116
431
1805
304,348
146,444
230
22 0
76,080
71,315
961
1800
153,509
73,222
228
44 0
18,829
41,822
8,696
1795
35,556
16,736
225
36 5
13,260
12,213
8,737
1790
6,667
3,138
225
26-0
11,000
379
697
Harvesting and handling cotton. — Cotton picking is general throughont
the United States by September i and continues until about January i
following. In southern Texas, cotton is picked as early as the 15th of
June, and in the Mississippi and Red rivers, sometimes as late as the; 15th
of March. The fields are picked over three or four times during a season
when labor is plentiful, but when labor is scarce they sometimes remain
untouched until all the bolls are open, when the crop is gathered at one
picking. The expense for picking the cotton is the largest item in the
cost of production. For upland' cotton it amounts to about twenty per
cent of the entire cost and for sea-island cotton it is slightly more. The
entire crop is still picked by hand, just as it was in the beginning of the
cotton growing industry. While one man with proper machinery can culti-
vate thirty acres, it requires four pickers to gather the crop as rapidly as
is necessary to prevent loss. A fair average day's work for a cotton picker
during a season is about one hundred pounds of seed cotton. At such a
rate it would require about one and one-half million persons, working four
months, to gather tlie average season's crop and would involve the ex-
6 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
penditure of more than ten per cent of the value of the crop. (See Plate i.)
The industry is very mucli hampered by the lack of mechanical ap-
pliances for harvesting the crop. Numerous attempts have been made to
invent a machine for picking cotton, but none of these has been successful,
since all of them have revealed such defects in practical working as to
prevent their adoption. The chief difficulty in perfecting a mechanical
cotton picker is the irregular ripening of the cotton. Scientists may be
able to overcome this obstacle. Cultural methods and research may lead
to the development of a cotton plant on which a large percentage of the
bolls will mature uniformly. Florists have brought about such uniformity
in the blossoming of flowers, and a careful study of the cotton plant will
certainly result in interesting and valuable developments for it.
The early method of handling cotton at the gin was exceedingly
laborious, wasteful, and unhealthy. Much has been done in recent years
in the way of combing, ginning and baling plants so that speed might be
increased and labor economized. A modern ginnery containing three gins
of seventy saws each and a double square-bale press, is presented in the
accompanying illustration. (See Plate 2.)
From the hand seeder, advance was made first to the animal power
gin, which, with a forty-saw capacity, yielded about two thousand pounds
of lint cotton per day, and then to the complete battery ginnery, carrying
in some instances as many as fifteen gins, each with seventy saws, operated
by steam power and having a capacity of 150 bales, or 75,000 pounds, in
twelve hours. The condenser and automatic feed press have superseded the
old wooden screw. The laborious handling of the seed is avoided, it being
blown either into a seed room or into the waiting wagon of the owner.
In this way the life and value of the seed are better preserved in con-
formity with the requirements of the oil mill. (See Cotton Seed and its
Uses, Ibid. )
Much complaint has been made by the consumers of American cotton
as to the careless methods of baling and wrapping. Unnecessary waste,
deterioration in quality, and greater danger from fire are among the
disadvantages resulting from the present practices. The demand for a neater
bale is both warranted and urgent. In many instances, the American
cotton is not uniformly distributed, and the bale is sometimes several inches
thicker at one end than the other. When these loosely pressed bales reacTi
the compress or the consumer they are frequently in a dilapidated condition,
brought about to a large extent by the practice of each of the several
bidders ripping open the covering and extracting samples of the cotton.
In this condition the bale is as easily ignited as tinder.
One of the most interesting features in connection with the cotton
growing industry is the ultilization of the seed which at one time was
practically a waste product. Although several cottonseed oil mills had been
built in the United States prior to 1840, the industry did not reach com-
OF THE UNITED STATES 7
mercial importance before 1870. While there were only 7 cottonseed oil
mills in the United States in i860, there were 26 in 1870, 119 in 1890, 369
in 1900, while at the present time there are more than 800. The amount
of capital invested in the industry at the present time is about $100,000,000,
and the value of crude products manufactured annually is more than
$100,000,000.
The value of tlie American cotton crop, including the seed, amounts
annually to approximately $800,000,000.
Collection of cotton statistics. — Much attention is given to the collection
of cotton statistics. Exchanges, brokers, and trade journals expend hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars annually in the collection of information rela-
tive to the condition, of the crop during the growing season, and regarding
the commercial movement of cotton during the harvesting season. Many
trained statisticians devote their time exclusively to these statistical en-
deavors. The expenditures made by the National Government and by the
several cotton-growing states and other local subdivisions in the interest of
cotton, not including the cost of educational work in the schools, colleges,
and institutes, amount to approximately $1,000,000 annually. Of this,
probably one-third is devoted to cotton at the experiment stations, one-
third to statistical inquiries, and the remaining one-third to special phases
of the plant and its enemies. A number of bureaus in several departments
of the National Government are now charged with work relative to some
phase of the cotton industry, and the general scope and importance of these
endeavors are indicated by naming the character of the investigations.
Bureaus of National Government charged with cotton investigations.
Department of Commerce
and Labor :
Census
Statistics
Manufactures
Corporations
Labor
Character of investigation.
Statistics, each season, of cotton ginned to specified dates,
and of stocks, and of consumption of cotton ; statistics
of acreage and production decennially from a canvass of
the growers; and special reports on cotton manufac-
tures and cotton-seed products at five-year periods.
Statistics of exports and imports of cotton and its manu-
factures and of cotton-seed products; also, statistics
relative to the internal and coastwise movement of cotton.
Information relative to foreign markets for cotton and cot-
ton-seed products.
Special investigations as authorized by Congress
Special investigations relative to wages paid, cost of living,
and other conditions affecting labor in the cotton industry.
TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
BUREAU.
Character of investigation (continued).
Department of Agriculture
Statistics
Plant Industry
Entomology
Soils
Office of Experiment
Stations
Weather
Biological Survey
Office of Public Roads.
Interstate Commerce Com
mission
Estimated statistics of acreage and production and informa-
tion relative to condition of crop during growing period.
Information relative to farmers' cooperative demonstration
and farm-management work ; cotton breeding ; cotton ac-
climatization ; cotton standardization, and cotton diseases.
Information relative to Mexican boll weevil and other
insect pests.
Information relative to condition of soils; methods of treat-
ment, and fertilizers.
Information relative to experiments of agricultural colleges
and stations; collection and dissemination of general in-
formation regarding the colleges and stations, and of in-
vestigations in this and other countries.
Information relative to rainfall; temperature, and meteor-
ological conditions.
Economic relation of birds with regard to insects and
other pests.
Questions and conditions relative to practical road building.
Hearing of complaints relative to discrimination in freight
rates.
Part II — In Other Countries
RY E. M. NORRIS
Cotton is produced by all the species of the genus gossypium, which
belongs to the natural order of the Malvacea; it is allied to mallow, holly-
hock, and hibiscus, the resemblance being very apparent both as regards
the foliage and the flowers. The species are herbaceous, shrub, and
trees, either perennial or annual. It is indigenous to the tropical and
sub-tropical parts of Asia, Africa, America, and all of Australia, but its
cultivation has extended far into the temperate zones. All the species have
leaves with three to five lobes, rather large flowers, sometimes purple, or
partially so, but usually yellow. The flowers soon fall. They grow singly
from the axils of the leaves, and are surrounded at the base by three large
heart-shaped, toothed involucral leaves or bracts, partially growing together
as one. The fruit is a three to five-celled capsule, springing open when ripe,
and contaii^ numerous seeds enveloped in cotton which issues from the
capsule after it has burst open. The species are numerous. Linnaeus
enumerated five, I.amarck in the Encyclopedia Metliodique enumerates eight
specimens. Cavanilles and Willdenow recognize ten. According to the
latter, the following species are distinct from each other : ( i ) Gossypium
herbaceum. (2) G. Indicum. (3) G. Micranthum. (4) G. Arboreum.
(5) G. Vitifolium. (6) G. hirsutum. (7) G. religiosum. (8) G. lati-
folium. (9) G. Barbadense. (10) G. Peruvianum. Cultivators usually
divide all into four primary species, each of which has several varieties ;
OF THE UNITED STATES 9
some cotton planters having recognized not less than a hundred. These
four species are: d) Gossypium barbadense, the most valuable of which,
the beautiful long-stapled "Sea-Island" is a variety and is grown upon
the islands and a portion of the mainland of Georgia, South CaroHna, and
Florida, the saline ingredients of the atmosphere being indispensable to its
growth. Egyptian cotton belongs also to Gossypium Barbadense. This
plant bears a yellow flower and a small, black seed. The character of the
plant changes when it is grown far inland, the seed becoming large and
hairy. (2) Gossypium herbaceum pertains to India, China, Egypt, etc.,
the principal varieties being known as Surat, Madras, and short-stapled
Egyptian, and it is grown in America, being known, as American Uplands.
It is a small shrub, having a yellow flower; the seeds are covered with a
greenish down and the staple is smooth and silky, although short. It is
hardy, and can be produced farther north than any other species of the
cotton plant. (3) G. Peruvianum is a native of South America, of which
the green-seed cotton of the United States is a variety. The stem is
ten to fifteen feet in height, the flowers are yellow, and the pods contain
eight or ten black seeds, firmly attached in a cone-like mass. The staple is
long and strong, and the cotton stands next in value to Sea-Island, and
long-stapled Egyptian. (4) G. Arboreum is a large tree-like plant found
in India, China, and varieties of it have long been successfully cultivated
in the United States. It has a red flower and produces fine yellowish-
white wool, somewhat like Sea-Island, when climate and soil are favorable.
The plant is perennial and will produce fibre (in good seasons, two crops)
for five to seven years in succession.
According to some authorities, cottoni derives its name from the Latin
name for quince, cotoneum malum. Pliny speaks of "wool-bearing trees,"
which he says "bear -fruit like a gourd, and of the size of a quince, which,
bursting when it is ripe, displays a ball of downy wool, from which are
made costly garments of a fabric resembling linen." One species of quince
has leaves covered on the upper side with downy wool, similar to the
leaves of cotton, and this, according to the etymologist Skinner, and to
Johnson, led to the application of the word cotoneum to cotton. If this
19 correct, the name did not come to the English language direct from the
Latin, but is derived from the Arabic. The Arabic word in European
characters is koton, and is pronounced goottn. The Italians and Spaniards.
who first received cotton from the Moors, took their name for the sub-
stance— the Italians calling it cotone, and the Spaniards, algodon, that is,
godon with the article "al" prefixed.
The cotton plant is a very delicate organism, and for its fullest and
best development is peculiarly dependent upon a fitting soil and climate.
The method of cultivation is practically the same in all countries where the
fibre is grown, but it more nearly approaches perfection in the United States.
Sowing is done from March to May (according to greater or lesser degrees
10 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
of spring frost) and picking begins in August and continues until the be-
ginning of November. The cottons grown in the United States, which is
the largest producer of the raw material, are varied in kind and excellent
in quality, owing to the adaptability of the climate, the scientific methods
of cultivation, and the careful manner in which it is prepared for the market.
Sea-Island, grown on all the islands off the coast or directly upon the
coast of South Carolina and Georgia, is the best cotton in the world, and
accordingly brings the highest prices. The staple is one and three-quarters
to two and one-half inches long. The fibre is extremely silky, fine but
strong, and can be spun to the highest counts of yarn. English authorities
claim that in one instance it was spun into counts which afforded 2,150
hanks to the pound. A pound of such yarn would measure one thousand
yards. Grown far from the coast in the above-mentioned States, it is from
one and one-half to two inches in the length of its staple and can be spun
up to 2oo's for ply yarn. Florida Sea-Island is grown on the mainland of
Florida from Sea-Island seed. It is strong and rather coarser than Sea-
Island, the staple being shorter, nor is it so carefully cultivated as the
Sea-Island.
The cotton crop of India is inferior in quantity only to that of the
United States. For many years the cultivation and manufacture of cotton
has been fostered by the British government in India. In the plains of
Bengal, the cotton raised, though short in staple, was the finest grown in
the world and formed the material out of which the exquisitely delicate
Dacca muslins were fabricated. It was known as Dacca cotton, and the
plant is a distinct variety of Gossypiumj Herbaceum. What little is raised
is used at home in the looms of a few native weavers. The cotton from the
Deccan, or Central India, is the best Indian cotton exported; the staple is
about seven-eighths to one inch. Southern India also produces some of the
best cotton grown in that country, which, however, owing to the conditions
of its cultivation and preparation for market is short of staple and dirty.
India exports much of her cotton to England as raw material, and con-
sumes an immense amount in her own mills.
Much attention has been given by the British government in India
to the fostering of the cotton growing industry, and the ginning and pre-
paring of the staple for the market, many experiments having been made in
regard to the choice of seed for the various localities, cause of deterioration,
best methods of cultivation, etc. The variety called Indian cotton is more
naturally adapted to the dry climate of India since it has a long taproot
which enables it to draw sustenance and moisture from greater depths of the
soil than the American species with its lateral roots spreading near the
surface. Many experiments have also been made in ginning, the machine
most in use being a roller gin of the improved Macarthy type. Nothwith-
standing these efforts, the cotton is inferior as compared with Sea-Island
OF THE UNITED STATES ii
and the best grades of long-stapled American, and comes into the market
in a dirty condition.
Through the efforts of the British Cotton Growing Association, the
area under cultivation in India was increased from 18,025,000 acres in the
crop year 1903 to 20,001,000 acres in the season of 1905; to 22,488,000 in
1906; 21,630,000 in 1907; 19,999,000 in 1908; 20,227,000 in 1909. And the
efforts of the Association are also bent on inyiroving the quality of the fibre
and bettering its preparation for market.
China produces about one and one-quarter to one and one-half million
bales of a rather short-stapled cotton, which is somewhat harsh to the
touch, and very white. It has the quality of mixing well with wool. The
crops are entirely consumed in the domestic manufactures. Cotton of a
similar type is also grown in Japan and Corea, and that also is used in the
home manufacture, Japan importing more than sha grows.
Egypt is the fourth in point of amount of the cotton-producing coun-
tries of the world. From time immemorial, a fine quality of cotton has
been grown in the upper region of the Nile, particularly in Abyssinia. (See
Egyptian Cotton, by Blaisdell, Ibid.)
In 1906-07, the cotton crop in Egypt was the largest ever grown in
that country, amounting to 6,949,783 cantars (the cantar equals 99 pounds),
practically every bale being consumed early in the year. The total ship-
ments to all countries from Egypt were 921,726 bales, averaging 725
pounds net weight. Of these, America, owing to a shortage caused by the
Gulf storm in 1906, took 119,850.
We give the following particulars in regard to cotton growing in
Africa other than Egypt. The shortage of cotton in 1903-04, and the
subsequent attempt to corner a market brought about the formation of the
British Cotton Growing Association, which operates under a royal charter,
with a paid-up capital of $1,250,000, which has as its object the cultivation
of cotton in the British colonial possessions and dependencies lying within
the latitudes of what may be termed the "cotton belt" of the world. Pro-
fessor Wyndham R. Dunstan, F. R. S., director of the Imperial Institute,
South Kensington, asserts that "cotton may be successfully grown in those
countries which fall in a region lying, roughly, forty degrees North and South
of the Equator, providing that the soil is appropriate, and that the rainfall
or irrigation is sufficient. Within this region, the following British colonies,
protectorates, and dependencies are included : British Honduras, the West
Indies, British Guiana, Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Lagos,
and Nigeria, East Africa and Uganda, South Africa, Mauritius, the
Seychelles, India, the Straits Settlements, and Federated Malay States,
Australia, New Guinea, Liji, Egypt, Cyprus and Malta. In most of these
countries, the rainfall is adequate, and in those in which it is deficient,
irrigation is possible in nearly every instance."
It was impossible at the outset for the Association to extend its
sMTi library;
12 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
operations over so wide a field; the West Indies, Africa, and India were
therefore chosen as the spots in which to make the initial efforts, and the
experiments carried out since then have definitely proved that large quan-
tities of cotton can be grown in the British Empire. The Association
supplies seed without charge for experimental purposes, and was instru-
mental in obtaining through the government grants-in-aid from the local
governments in Africa, which were allowed annually untif March 31, 1910,
as follows :
Southern Nigeria 5,ooo
Northern Nigeria i ,000
Gold Coast 1,500
British East Africa 1,000
The Association contributed a like amount and an agreement was
made that the whole of the £17,000 should be annually spent in experimental
and instructional work. Money has been loaned to planters and ginning
stations have been established.
In 1907, a serious drought throughout the whole of West Africa, during
the growing period of the crop, seriously affected the returns. Progress
on the Gold Coast is slow ; the quality is satisfactory, but it is feared some
years must elapse before an appreciable amount is obtained. In Lagos,
the quality of the cotton has been greatly improved. Northern Nigeria
produces from 50,000 to 80,000 bales of a good quality. Uganda promises
extremely well as a cotton-growing country, the quality proving excellent.
Mr. Winston Churchill, as Under Secretary of State to the Colonies, visited
East Africa and Uganda in 1908, and reported that in Uganda alone there
were over 20,000 square miles (12,800,000 acres) suitable for cotton culti-
vation and over 1,000,000 farmers. In Nyassaland, cotton growing has
made solid progress ; cotton of a superior Upland type can be grown in
the highlands, but the cultivation of Egyptian in the lowlands has not yet
proved a conspicuous success. In Rhodesia, where much newly cleared
land was planted, the results were not eminently satisfactory, as cotton
does not do well in such ground. A number of white planters have been
growing good cotton in Eastern Rhodesia, and gins and presses have been
sent out. Very satisfactory cotton has been grown in the Transvaal under
the auspices of the Zontpausberg Cotton Syndicate. Some little experi-
menting has been done in Natal, and in Cape Colony some most beautiful
samples of cotton have been grown, but the attempt has not passed beyond
the experimental stage.
The Government is proceeding to the task of building railways,
through the cotton-growing districts, so that the crops may be expeditiously
conveyed to the shipping points. Those who are qualified to forecast
the future of the cotton-growing industry of .Africa, declare that they
lOO
250
200
9.500
5.500
250
200
1,500
500
11,600
6,400
2,000
5.000
200
300
2,300
1,500
200
300
OF THE UNITED STATES 13
are not unduly optimistic in predicting that the crops will increase in a
steady yearly ratio until the production ultimately reaches the amount of
5,000,000 bales per" annum.
BALES OF 400 POUNDS.
1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908
Gambia 50 100 300
Sierra Leone 50 100 200 150
Gold Coast 50 150 200 200
Lagos 500 2,000 3,200 6,000
Southern Nigeria 50 100 150 150
Northern Nigeria 50 100 500 1,000
Total for West Africa. . 750 2,550 4,550 7,500
Uganda 500
British East Africa 200
Nyarsaland 2,200
Rhodesia 100
Total for East Africa. . 150 850 2,000 3,000 4.700 7,100
A course similar to that of the English has been taken by the French in
regard to their African colonies. We glean many interesting facts from a
report prepared by the "Association-Cotonniere Colonial." In Algeria,
ginning factories have been established with hydraulic presses for the
baling of the cotton in several sections, and three co-operative cotton-
growing companies were formed in Orleansville, Philippeville and Bone;
each company has established ginneries which are run by electric plants.
In Algiers, experiments led to the conclusion that Mississippi seed did
well in the districts of Philippeville, Guelma and Batna, where irrigation
is not possible, yielding a remunerative crop in spite of the lack of rain.
In the plains of Sig. Perregaux, Orleansville, up to Blida where irrigation
is possible, the great majority of the planters have adapted Mit-afifi. In
these plains, it gives a yield varying from 14 to 22 hundredweight of cotton
per hectare, which is a larger yield than that of the same variety in Egypt,
and a successful trial has been made with bi-annual cultivation at Chelif,
where cotton is in its very element. In the Soudan, the work was mostly
limited to the installation of ginneries. Experiments of irrigation are in
course at Richard-Toll, where ten to twenty hectares are to be cultivated,
experimentally. Dahomey crops are good and increasing. The seed is
smooth and the fibre excellent. In other colonies good progress has been
made, especially in Guadeloupe, where ginning and pressing machinery
has been imported. In New Caledonia the extension of cotton cultivation
is most marked, Caravonica cotton being that best suited for the island,
the same variety showing good results in northeastern parts of Madagas-
14 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
car. Tahiti and the Somalis Coast also show an extension of cotton
cultivation. The following table gives a definite idea as to what is
being done in this direction :
Cotton Produced in the French Colonies in 1907-08:
1907 1908
Higher Senegal and Niger 40,190 18,250
Dahomey 91.445 59.035
Algiers 31,725 60,400
Guadeloupe 1,042 16,150
New Caledonia 5,ooo
Reunion 950
Madagascar and Comores 10,240
Somalis Coast 500
Tahiti i ,000
164,402 171.525
750 bales 780 bales
In the German colonies much has been done on the same lines and the
success is inspiring. For Togo the output for 1907-08 was 1,691 bales of
ginned cotton, as compared with 1,205 bales in the year 1906-07, an increase
of over forty per cent. Ginning factories have been established at all the
large centres. In Cameroon, experimentation is still in its preparatory
stages. The building of railroads and the waterway Niger-Benne will
probably open out wide districts. Native cotton grown at Alkassim, in
North Carolina, has been valued in Germany as fully equal to middling
Texas. In New Guinea the cultivation is still in the earlier stages of
experiment. In German East Africa the cultivation has made satisfactory
progress, and cotton growing by the natives is now on a firm footing in
the Rufidji district. The cotton crop in German East Africa for 1907-08
was about 1,600 bales, an increase of about 850 bales as compared with
the year before. In Russia a large amount of cotton is grown, the cotton
area lying within the Asiatic Territory of the Russian Empire in Turkestan
and Transcaucasia. In the former, cotton has been cultivated from the
most ancient times, being chiefly grown on lands not needed for the prime
necessities of life, such as wheat, rice, barley and other staples. Cotton
cultivation here attained its greatest development soon after i860, when
the Russian cotton trade was suffering from the effects of the war in the
United States. Since then Russia has devoted a great deal of attention
to the development of the plant, and the culture was encouraged by the
government. Upland American cotton was introduced, proved to grow
successfully, and energetic measures were taken for its cultivation, seeds
OF THE UNITED STATES IS
being distributed free of cost to those who desired them, and manuals in
regard to the cultivation of the American Upland were published in the
Russian and local languages ; and in 1890, 245,000 acres produced more
than 45,600,000 pounds of clean fibre. The native cotton is cleaned by
the primitive wooden roller machines worked by hand power. But nearly
all the Upland cotton is sent to ginning mills, where modern, and in most
cases. American gins are worked by water or by steam. In 1893 there were
about 100 of these mills in Turkestan with more than 400 gins and 120
presses.
Cotton for Russia in Europe is shipped from other countries of
Central Asia; namely, Bokhara, Khiva and the Transcaspian territory.
Bokhara produces about 54,000,000 pounds of cotton of the Asiatic variety
mainly; Khiva, about 21,000,000 native variety, but vastly superior to other
Asiatic growths. The Transcaspian territory grows but 360,000 pounds,
mostly Upland. The aggregate product of all the Central Asiatic countries
is 144,000,000 pounds, three-fourths of which is sent to European Russia.
In Transcaucasia there are about 100,000 acres devoted to the cultivation
of cotton, mainly native, for Upland has not displaced the variety planted
by the natives from very early times. The yield is about 230 pounds per
acre. In the Province of Samarkind American cotton is rapidly taking
the lead, as it is in the Province of Khojind also. In addition to her
large crops, Russia also imports a great (|uan1ity of cotton from the
United States, Great Britain, Germany and Egypt.
In the British West Indies experiments have been made under the
auspices of the British Cotton-Growing Association. Sir Daniel Morris,
the imperial director of agriculture for the West Indies, had already
accomplished much of the pioneer work, and the assistance of the association
was confined to setting up several ginneries and extending financial aid
to needy planters. The cotton grown was the finest Sea Island, and in
1907, there were 5,057 bales of it shipped to England.
Brazil sends into the market a large amount of poorly-cultivated and
badly-ginned cotton. It is somewhat wiry in the fibre, the staple being
a trifle longer than that grown in the Cotton Belt.
From Peru, we have three varieties. Sea Island, Rough and Smooth.
The Rough Peruvian is of the most importance, because of its similarity
to wool, which renders it of great value for mingling with wool in the
making of merino woolens. It has a woolly, crinkled staple about one and
one-fourth to one and one-half inches long; it is clean and well prepared,
and, when carded, its resemblance to wool is so close that it could be
sold as that commodity even to a dealer. Like wool, it takes the dye readily,
and holds it fast. When mixed with wool, it reduces the tendency to
shrinkage in the wool with which it is combined ; it renders the goods
more durable and less expensive to produce, and gives them a better
lustre and finish. This "vegetable wool," as it is called, is largely imported
i6
TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
into the United States, chiefly for the use of manufacturers of woolen
goods. Some of this cotton, grown on copper soil, is quite "Red." The
"Smooth Peruvian" is shorter and resembles the Gulf Cotton of the
United States, while the Sea Island resembles Florida Sea Island.
The production of cotton in Mexico in 1909 was estimated at 125,000
bales of 500 pounds each. Turkey produced 70,000 bales of cotton in 1909.
Considerable quantities of cotton are grown in other countries, among
which are Greece, with about 15,500 bales; Italy, 10,000 bales; Indo-
China, 15,000 bales; Africa, other than Egypt, 25,000 bales; Haiti, 10,000
bales; Dutch East Indies, 10,000 bales: Japan, 5,000 bales; Korea, 5,000
bales; Argentina, about 5,000 bales, and the Philippine Islands, 4,000
bales. While cotton growing in Australia has not passed the experimental
stage, the present indications in Queensland are promising. The institution
by the commonwealth of a bonus to the growers is serving as an incentive,
but the requirements for local consumption will readily absorb the pro-
duction.
OF THE UNITED STATES 17
EGYPTIAN COTTON
BY C. M. BLAISDELL
The introduction of cotton into Egypt is due to a certain Mako Bey,
who, about the year 1820, made the first attempts in his property near
Alexandria. It is from him that the "Mako Cotton" or "Mako BaumwoUe,"
principally employed in Germany, comes. The French call the same thing
"Tumel Cotton," after a certain Tumel, gardener of Mako Bey, who occu-
pied himself principally with these plantations.
This culture, protected by the Vice King, Mehemed Aly, acquired
some importance in a few years. But the great development of the
industry occurred after the "Civil War" in America, on account of the
fabulous prices that were paid at that time.
It is not positively known where the first seeds came from, or if
the primitive color was brown, or if this color was acquired from at-
mospheric influences or the action of the soil. Since it has been used for
manufacturing it has been distinguished by four principal qualities, long
fibre, strength, silkiness of texture and dark color. It is an established
fact that the same seed planted in the different districts does not give
the same results, either in quality or quantity. Whether it be the climatic
influences or peculiarities of the soil that contribute to produce a cotton
more or less long, silky, and even of slight difference in color, is not
known.
These influences, together with the carelessness of the cultivators in
the choice of seed, may have contributed to the degeneration of the
original stock, while the crossing of plants has made new varieties and
regenerated or changed the product of the country. Within the last few
years the government has interested itself seriously in the cultivation of
cotton by encouraging the culti\rators in the choice of good seed, and
in discovering more productive varieties.
The principal varieties of Egyptian Cotton are the following:
Brown Cotton.
I. Achmouni, discovered somewhere in the seventies, in the village
of "Achmoun," province of Garbieh. This cotton was for a long time
the principal textile product of the country, yielding at least two and one-half
to three cantars the Yeddan (one Yeddan, 4200 square metres). Now it is
entirely abandoned in lower Egypt, while the cultivation is continued in
i8 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
upper Egypt. The product is, on account of the sandy soil, a Httle woolly
and of a light shade, but of a tolerably strong fibre and healthy.
2. Bamia, so-called on account of its resemblance to "Bamiet," a vege-
table of the country. The color is almost identical with the Achmouni,
but the fibre is longer and stronger. The seed was found about 1890
in the Province of Dakahlich, and gave from the beginning good results.
The culture has been limited, because a good deal of the soil does not
seem suited to it and because it is very susceptible to inclement weather,
especially fogs. It is planted in parts of Dakahlich (Mansuza), Garbieh
fSamaund Mahalla), and the product constitutes scarcely three to four
per cent of the entire harvest. It is the cotton represented by our types
13 and 14. The return in good years is four-fifths cantars the Yeddan.
3. Mit Afifi. This cotton originated in the village of Mit Afifi,
Province of Menonfieh. The color is darker than the Achmouni and
Bamia. The fibre is fine and strong. As it grows much faster than the
other two varieties, it is less exposed to the fogs of autumn, and the
plant is not so delicate. This explains its .superior yield, which is three
and one-half to six cantars the Yeddan. On account of these advantages,
the cultivation of the Mit Afifi spreads rapidly all through lower Egypt,
and constitutes seven-eighths of the entire crop. The best qualities are
furnished by the Province of Menonfieh and the Southern part of Garbieh,
especially the districts of Cafre, Layat, Tantah and Birket-el-Sab ; the
silk is long, fine and strong. It is the cotton of our types 15, 16 and 17.
In Behera and the Northern part of Garbieh, the product has generally
a shorter fibre, but fine; so that it passes for Nos. 16, 17 and 18 when
the customer does not desire an especially long fibre. Clarkieh, Galionbieh
and Dakahlich furnish a less fine cotton, but strong and healthy, which
goes in large quantities for the types 18 and 22.
4. Gallini. Cotton very fine, long and strong, resembling Sea Island.
It was for a long time the principal product of the North of Garbieh.
But having degenerated and given results less and less satisfactory, the
culture was abandoned.
5. Colon blanc. (White cotton. ") The seed was introduced from
America during the War of the Rebellion. Several districts, principally
Lifta, Lamanoud and Birket-el-Sab, were well adapted to this culture
which for twenty years was very extensive, yielding four to five cantars
the Yeddan. This cotton constituted about twenty per cent of the entire
crop, but since that time it has slightly degenerated and given place to
other more lucrative varieties. To-day it constitutes only three or four
per cent of the crop.
6. Sea Island. Seed imported from America, cultivated only in a
small strip and soon abandoned completely on account of its very meagre
returns.
OF THE UNITED STATES 19
7. Hamouli. White variety, cultivated in small proportions for some
years. Actually it has already degenerated and is mixed with Mit Afifi.
8. Lafiri. White cotton, discovered within a few years by a certain
Mr. Lafiri. The fibre is long, strong and fine. The returns are said to
be superior to that of the Mit Afifi. Nevertheless, the cultivation has not
extended beyond simple trials.
9. Abbassy. White cotton, fine and long, discovered recently by a
certain Parachimonas who named it Abssy, in honor of the Vice King
Abbas Ililmi. The trials made in 1907 gave a return of eight to ten
cantars the Yeddan. Trials are to be made on a much larger scale, but it
is impossible as yet to give an estimate of the result.
Cultivation on a grand scale never yields the same result as a trial
on a small extent of ground, which naturally receives the most minute
care and attention. Cut if the highest hopes are realized only in part, this
cotton will doubtless augment materially the Egyptian harvest. The pro-
duction of cotton in upper Egypt in comparison to the total crop is in-
significant. It amounts to 200,000 to 250,000 cantars per year, two to
three per cent of the entire crop. Nevertheless, this culture is susceptible
of a great increase when a rational civilization shall secure regular ir-
rigation. The best cotton of these regions is that of Beni-Sonef, tolerably
long and fine, while the districts of Zayoun Bibeh Magaga and Minieh
furnish a cotton of the same appearance, but generally shorter and more
woolly.
The bulk of the crop then comes from lower Egypt, which is divided
politically into six principal provinces, of which Menonfieh and Garbieh
are in the Delta : Behera at the left, and Galionbieh, Clarkieh and Dahahlieh
on the right of the Delta.
We have already mentioned above, the districts which furnish the
best cotton. It is necessary, however, to add that a system has been
adopted within a few years, of planting seeds from other provinces, which
has given good results, and which at the same time diminishes the great
difference in quality which existed formerly between the cottons of dif-
ferent provinces.
Generally speaking, the Bamia has the longest fibre, from one and
one-half to one and three-fourths inches; the Mit Afifi of Menonfieh,
Nos. 15 and 16, approach it equally. The shortest fibre is found in the
Province of Zayoum and Behera, which is from one inch to one and one-
fourth inches.
TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
COTTON GINNING
The origin of the primitive cotton-gin is lost in the mists of antiquity.
From time immemorial, the natives of India pursued the art of manu-
facturing cotton into cloth and into muslins, and it is obvious that very
early in their manipulation of cotton must have arisen the necessity for
a mechanical contrivance for separating the lint from the seed. The "churka"
or Indian gin must have been almost coincident with the rude wheel for
spinning and the simple looms in which they wove the first webs of
cotton cloth, we know not how many thousands of years ago.
The churka (See Plate 2) is a small hand-mill or gin, commonly
operated by women, and "consists of two rollers of teakwood, fluted
longitudinally with five or six grooves and revolving nearly in contact. The
upper roller is turned by a handle, and the lower is carried along with it
by a perpetual screw at the axis. The cotton is put in at one side and
drawn through by the revolving rollers : but the seeds being too large to pass
through the opening, are torn off and fall down on the opposite side from
the cotton." The churka, in various modifications, still exists all over
India, the best-known type of the machine being the Guzerat churka,
which consists of two rollers, an upper iron one, of about half an inch in
diameter and a lower wooden one of about two inches in diameter. These
rollers revolve with unequal rapidity, the iron one much faster than the
large wooden one. The common churka is obviously a very crude and
imperfect machine: the feeding being done by hand, it was impossible
to supply the whole length of the roller and so work it to its full capacity.
To atone for the imperfection of the churka, the cotton was subjected
to a second process called "bowing." This was performed with a large
bow (See Plate 2) made elastic by a combination of strings which,
being put into contact with a heap of cotton, the workman strikes the
string with a heavy wooden mallet, which operation, while freeing the
cotton from dust and husks, raises it to a downy fleece. In the course
of ages cotton found its way to all the countries of the East and into
Europe, and the churka and bow with it. Still later, the two last named
were introduced into America, supposedly from the Bahamas, and the
bow gave rise to the commercial phrase, "bowed Georgia cotton." (See
Plate 2.) In the Dharwar district of the Southern Mahratta country
of India another method of ginning is in use, which is adapted only
to the long-stapled, small-seeded cotton grown there. The cleaning of
cotton by the foot roller is accomplished thus : "The cotton is spread
OF THE UNITED STATES 21
over a smooth, flat stone of from one to two feet square, sometimes round,
sometimes square shaped : an iron rod eighteen inches long is placed on
the stone and a forward rolling motion is imparted to it by the foot of
the worker ; sometimes the rod is shorter and slightly conical and the
motion is then circular, round and round the stone : in both cases the
effect is that the seed is squeezed out and pushed away in front of the
iron roller, leaving the clean cotton fibre behind it on the stone. From
four to six pounds of clean cotton is the output of a day's work."
Efforts were made at a very early date in the cultivation of cotton
in the South to improve upon the churka, and several roller ginning
machines were invented; notably, in 1742, a French planter named Dubreuil
invented one of the first machines for separating the seed from the fibre ;
in 1772, a somewhat similar one was constructed by a Mr. Cribs or Krebs,
and a more practical gin was introduced from the Bahama Islands by
Dr. Joseph Eve, of Augusta, Ga., about 1790. These roller gins, a mod-
ernized and improved application of the principles of the churka, proved
admirably serviceable for the ginning of the long-stapled, smooth-seeded
Sea Island cotton ; but an immense problem confronted the planters of
the inland states, that of harvesting and preparing for manufacturing
purposes the prolific crops of short-stapled or Upland cotton. Necessity is
ever the mother of invention, and when man's need for certain things
becomes imperative, ideas spring forth from various sources simultaneously,
as though they had been hibernating in men's minds, awaiting the crucial
moment. So it was at this epoch of the culture of cotton in America.
Hardly had Eli Whitney received a patent for his toothed-roller ginning
machine, than Hodgen Holmes invented and received a patent for a gin
necessarily similar in some respects to Whitney's, but having toothed
plates or circular saws revolving on a cylinder instead of the spiked
wooden cylindei' of Whitney. The honor of establishing the first practical
and productive power gin in the world must be conceded to Hodgen
Holmes. This gin was run by water in Fairfield county. South Carolina,
by Mr. James Kincaid, in 1795. But we are pressing forward unduly fast.
In 1792, Eli Whitney, a native of Massachusetts and a graduate of
Yale College, travelled by boat to Savannah, Ga., intending to penetrate
into the interior from that place in the hope of finding a position as a
tutor, and thereby to obtain the means to follow the studies which would
fit him for the profession of the law. On the boat he met Mrs. Nathaniel
Greene, the widow of the .\merican Revolutionary General of that name,
and this lady invited him to make her house his home and take up his
studies immediately. Whitney had evinced a taste and aptitude for me-
chanics from boyhood and he at once made himself useful in that direction
about his patroness' plantation. At this time, there was no method for
cleaning the lint from the seed of the short-stapled, green-seeded Upland
cotton but that of hand-picking, a pound of cleaned cotton being the
22 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
result of one day's labor of one woman; and the wearied slaves who had
wrought all day in the cotton field were set to seed the cotton as their
evening's task. Whitney at once set to work, and the result of his ex-
periments was a machine which successfully separated the large, woolly
seed from the fibre of the Upland cotton. (See Plate 2.) Whitney's
petition for a patent was filed with Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State,
June 20, 1793, and a patent was issued to Eli Whitney, March 14, 1794,
signed by George Washington, President; Edmund Randolpli, .Secretary of
State, and William Bradford, Attorney-General. This gin, in the documents
filed at the patent office, and in the United States District Court, Savannah,
Ga., is described as having a wooden cylinder into w'hich were driven spikes
or teeth of iron wire for the purpose of separating the lint from the seed.
The patent issued to Hodgen Holmes, May 12, 1796, was signed by George
Washington, President ; Timothy Pickering, Secretary of State, and Charles
Lee, Attorney-General, and was for an improved gin having circular saws
fixed at regular intervals upon a cylinder which passed through spaces
between ribs. Thus while Whitney's invention of a gin consisting of a
wooden cylinder, carrying annular rows of wire spikes, a slotted bar and
a clearing brush was fundamental, the practical application of the funda-
mental idea was completed and carried out in a practical manner by
Holmes' invention of a gin with a shaft carrying circular saws, which passed
through narrow spaces between ribs. (See Plate 2.)
. Immediately upon the receipt of his patent, Whitney entered into
partnership with Mr. Miller, of Savannah, in the manufacture of cotton-
gins. His idea was to own all the gins and to gin all the cotton produced
in the country. Now, after the advent of the gin in 1794, a large crop
of cotton was grown for the following season, the planters supposing that
it could be prepared for the market by the new gins; but Whitney &
Miller could not supply the demand, and, naturally, there was much in-
fringement of the patent and many lawsuits in regard to it. When tfte
heavy crops were ripening on the fields and the gins were not forthcoming,
the planters had rough gins made in their own blacksmith shops. Whitney
received from South Carolina, as the price of the State rights, $50,000;
from North Carolina about $30,000, and from Tennessee about $10,000,
his royalties in the Southern States thus amounting to $90,000, a very
considerable sum in those days. In Georgia, priority of invention was
claimed for a gin invented by Mr. Joseph Watkins, a planter of that State.
His machine consisted in part of a wooden cylinder in which were
inserted short spikes or teeth of iron wire, and Georgia refused to pay a
royalty to Whitney, who, nevertheless, brought twenty-seven suits for in-
fringement of his patent in Savannah, Ga. ; of these, a decree for perpetual
injunction was issued against Arthur Fort and John Powell; a verdict was
granted against Charles Gachel for $1500 and against Isaiah Carter for
$2000; judgment in default was allowed in one case; in two cases there
PLATE II— Cotton Ginning
1. The Churka.
2. The Bow.
3. Whitney's Remodeled,
4. Eagle Hand Power.
5. Primitive Cotton Press.
6. Munger Huller.
7. Munger System Outfit.
JAMES H LAMB CO.
OF THE UNITED STATES 23
was a verdict for the defendant, and the rest of the actions were non-
suited or dismissed.
Whether the saw-gin was due wholly to the inventive genius of
Whitney or of Holmes, or whether the machine is partially the work of
each, is a moot point to-day. The time was ripe for the invention of the
saw-gin, it was brought into being and completely revolutionized the cotton-
manufacturing trade of America and of Great Britain, and built up the
Southern States on a basis of agricultural prosperity. To give some idea
of the speedy transformation of the business of producing cotton for
manufacturing purposes, note the following figures : In 1792, the amount
of cotton marketed was 63,000 bales, of 500 pounds weight each. In 1796,
when the saw gin had been in use for barely three years, the amount was
200 000 bales, which, in the year 1909, had risen to the amount of 9,436,400
bales.
Various modifications have from time to time been made in the saw-
gin, but none have proved of any commercial value, and the fundamental
working principles of the modern saw-gin are the same as when patented
by Whitney and Holmes ; perhaps it inclines rather more to the Holmes'
model, for the operation of Whitney's gin was intermittent; when one
breast full was ginned, the operation was suspended in order that the seed
might be let out. The Holmes gin worked continuously, the improved form
of the breast enabling it to make and carry a revolving roll of cotton, the
seed dropping out as the roll of cotton revolved in the breast.
The main features of the modern saw-gin are : i, a feed box, or
hopper, for the seed cotton ; 2, a revolving distributer ; 3, a cylinder with
circular saws; 4, a brush. The parts which were formerly made of wood
are now of steel or iron, while the brush, wliich in Whitney's gin consisted
of four cross arms studded with bristles, is now a hollow wooden cylinder,
having twenty-five to thirty-five rows of bristles. Various devices have
been patented for les.sening the friction at the breast, revolving heads at
the ends of the breast proving of lasting merit for this purpose. The
product of the modern saw-gin is twenty-two pounds seed cotton each hour
per saw, or seven pounds lint cotton, turning out 880 pounds from a forty-
saw gin ; eighty saws is the largest gin made, while the most popular size is
the seventy-saw gin, which has a cripacity of 1,500 pounds seed cotton per
hour; the gins are set in batteries of four so that in the pneumatic elevator
system a ginning outfit with four seventy-saw gins would elevate, clean,
gin, and bale more than five to six thousand pounds of seed cotton per
hour. The speed of tlie steam-power gin is more than twice that of the
mule-power gin, but the gain is questionable. The old proverb, "haste
makes waste," holds good in this, as in other matters ; the higher the speed
the more badly damaged is the staple, and the price obtained is necessarily
lower, quality being sacrificed to quantity.
The huller, or double-breasted gin, is a type of saw-gin especially
24 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
designed for handling the cotton grown in the lowlands of the Mississippi,
Delta and other bottom lands, where the cotton grows large and thick and
ripens fast. Some of the dried bolls, which are locally termed "hulls,"
fail to be separated by the pickers, and this work is accomplished by the
"Huller gin," Whitney's spiked roller with Holmes' saw-carrying cylinder.
It has a double breast; in the bottom of the outer breast is a spiked
roller which combs out the "hulls" as the saws draw the cotton up into
the main breast. All parts of this gin are larger in proportion than those
of the regular saw-gin, and fewer revolutions are necessary to turn out
the same quantity of lint.
At the outset, the saw-gins were set up on the plantations (see
Plate 2), a building of wood being erected to house them and to furnish
storage for the cotton as it came from the field, a lint room for the cotton
as it came from the gin, and another to store the lint until it could be
baled; also a place for the running gear, which was usually driven by
horse or mule power. As for baling in the older gin houses, there was
usually a circular hole cut in the floor of the lint room, and through this
aperture a large sack was hung, into which the cotton was packed by hand.
Later on, when it became desirable that the bales, to facilitate their trans-
portation, should be of uniform size and shape, and as compact as pos-
sible, came the screw press, which was entirely separate from the gin
house, though adjacent to it; this was worked by horses or mules until
after the Civil War, when small steam engines were used. About eleven
plantation hands were employed about the ginnery and press and the
ginning and packing of two or three bales was considered a sufficient day's
work.
After the close of the war, the emancipation of the slaves gradually
brought about a change in the way of doing things ; labor was necessarily
scarcer and more costly, and many devices were invented for lessening the
amount required. A mechanical feeder was attached to the gin, which
enabled the ginner to dispense with one helper, and, at the same time, a
condenser attachment to catch the lint and deliver it from the gin in a
continuous bat did the task of the lint-room hand.
Then followed a compact press, which could be managed by two
men, and which was placed conveniently near the condenser. This made
help to carry the cotton from the lint room to the press unnecessary, as
it did also the mules and men for operating the screw press. Then by
degrees the planters adopted the tenant system, and it was found cheaper,
simpler and more satisfactory for the planter to buy a steam engine,
hire the necessary help and gin for the public at a fixed charge. There
were, too, perambulating ginneries, which travelled from plantation to
plantation, often doing the work on the cotton field. Then followed
well-designed and fitted steam ginneries, equipped with latest labor-saving
devices. The greatest difficulty, and that which was last to be overcome,
OF THE UNITED STATES 25
was the problem of baling. In 1883, Mr. R. S. Miinger introduced a
pneumatic system of elevating and cleaning cotton, which consisted of a
pneumatic elevator which took the cotton out of the wagon or bin, elevated
it above the gins, cleaned and delivered the cotton upon a spiked belt,
which distributed it into a battery of feeders much better than it could
be done by hand. In the feeder it was thoroughly cleaned again before
entering the gins (a battery of say four gins), from which it was delivered
into a common lint flue attatched to a batt-ery condenser, which separated
the air from the lint cotton and formed a continuous bat, fed automatically
into a double press box (see Plate 2), thus elevating, cleaning, ginning,
baling and pressing the cotton in one operation. While it must be conceded
that the saw-gin with its high rate of speed has solved the problem of
harvesting the vast crops of Upland cotton grown in the Southern States,
it is indubitably true that it injures the staple by cutting the fibre when
tTie saw is worked at a high rate of speed, and unless the gin is carefully
managed the cotton is liable to be cut.
There are other important machines for ginning cotton beside the
saw-gin. The roller-gin has been brought to a high state of perfection
in England for use in Egypt and in India, and many have been brought
to the United States for use in ginning the long-stapled Sea Island cotton.
A limited quantity of this type of gin is made here, but the ginning
machinery business of the United States deals chiefly with the saw-gin.
The gin almost invariably used throughout Egypt is that known as the
Macarthy patent, self-feeding, single-action, which is particularly suited
to long-stapled cotton, and which separates the seeds without crushing
them, while the fibre is, as a rule, uninjured. The Macarthy gin, the in-
vention of which is ascribed to an American, in its original and simplest
form consisted of a leather roller and two steel blades. One of these
steel blades or knives is pressed tightly against the revolving leather roller.
The seed cotton in front of it is drawn in by the rough leather surface,
and gripped between the blade and the roller until the seed only is kept
back at the edge of the knife. To some extent, the mere friction of the
leather roller on the fibre will detach the cotton from the seed, but in
order to expedite this action, the seeds, as they are held fast at the edge
of the fixed blade, are struck oft by another blade, to which is imparted
a quick reciprocating motion at a very small distance in front of the fixed
blade, and thus the seed falls to the ground on one side of the roller,
whilst the cotton is delivered on the other. The fixed blade is called
the "doctor knife" and the movable blade "the beater." In feeding, as a
rule, the seed cotton is placed in front of the roller and doctor knife, on
a grid provided with such openings between its bars that the seed can
pass through it, only after it has been freed from all the cotton adhering
to it. The various gins constructed on the Macarthy principle difTer in
the construction of the leather roller, in the shape of the beater, and the
26 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
modes of imparting motion to it, in the methods adopted for maintaining
the pressure of the "doctor knife" on the roller, in the construction of the
feeding arrangement and in tlie speed at which the machines are worked.
The American saw-gin was introduced into India for the manipulation
of the acclimatized American cotton grown at Dharwar, and was manu-
factured at the government saw-gin factory established at that place, but
the advocates of the roller-gin in India claim that the superior quality
of the fibre prepared by it renders its use desirable even for kinds of
cotton in which the saw-gins yield a much greater quantity. "There is
no doubt that the roller-gin separates the fibre from the seed with verj-
much less injury to the fabric than is caused by the use of the saw-gin,
and in some future time, no doubt, the most improved patterns of it will
be widely adopted in the cotton belt of the Southern States."
Mr. Forbes Robertson, in an interesting and minute report of ex-
perimental trials made in Madras and Broach in India, and in Manchester,
England, in 1879-80, gives some very interesting figures in regard to
both roller-gins and saw-gins. He suggests that the great inferiority
of the saw-gins in regard to the injury done to the cotton may, perhaps,
be due to lack of knowledge as to their manufacture and working on the
part of the factory superintendents. In these experiments special notice
was taken of an American sixty-saw gin, made by Daniel Pratt, of Pratt-
ville, Ala., the machine being an improved and modified Whitney type
which was sent to England at the request of Lord Clarendon, then foreign
secretary, and the machine received great commendation.
A favorite gin in India is the single-roller, double-action gin of the
Macarthy type, which cleans in one hour 25 to 45 pounds of American
Upland, Indian, Chinese, and all short-stapled cottons per hour, and 40 to
70 pounds of long-stapled. The double-roller gin, intended for both long
and short-stapled cottons, cleans 95 to 125 pounds of short-stapled cotton
per hour and 140 to 180 pounds of long-stapled per hour; Dobson &
Barlow's single-action knife roller yielded 116 pounds per hour of "Dharwar
American" and American Upland, and 140 to 180 pounds of long-stapled
cotton. These gins are all 42-inch roller-gins, and a 42-inch roller-gin is
equal to an i8-saw gin. As these figures show, the Dobson & Barlow
single-action knife roller is not so very far behind the saw-gin in point
of quantity, but it is very much better in the point of quality of its
work, the cotton cleaned by it being in very fine condition.
The conditions in India can hardly be compared with those of the
United States ; so much of the cotton growing being done by individuals
on small farms or holdings, these usually gin their own cotton in their
houses, and for the purpose a cottage churka was some years ago
perfected by a Mr. Forbes, who was superintendent of the government
cotton-gin works.
We will not go into details here respecting the various gins now
OF THE UNITED STATES
27
manufactured in the United States as there will be a complete history of
each important manufactory of this class of machinery in another part
of this work. There were in active operation in the United States in
1909, 26,431 ginneries, with 3,709,835 saws; steam power was employed
in 23,766 of these ginneries; water power in 1,544; gasoline power in 806;
animal power in 199; electric power in 116. There were in addition 238
establishments where Sea Island cotton w;as ginned by other than saw-gins.
28 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
TRANSPORTATION IN ITS RELATION TO THE COTTON
INDUSTRY
BY W. W. FINLEY
Industrial and commercial development in all ages and among all
peoples have been dependent on transportation. It is impossible to con-
ceive of human existence, even in a most primitive state, without trans-
portation. The man of the Stone Age carried to his cave the meat on
which he fed, and the skins which made his bed and clothing. Each
step of his advance in civilization has been made possible only by a
corresponding expansion of transportation. As communities developed, it
was found that certain individuals were more successful in producing
certain things, and specialization of industries had its first rude beginnings
and commerce in the form of barter. Owing to differences in climatic
conditions and the distribution of natural resources, it was found that certain
industries were peculiarly adapted to certain localities. This resulted in
the gradual growing up of a system under which there were produced in
different localities more of certain commodities than were needed for con-
sumption in those localities, and commerce between communities began.
From those early beginnings, when goods were carried on the backs of men,
in rude canoes, or on pack animals, and when commodities were exchanged
directly for other commodities, there has been slowly developed through
succeeding centuries our present system of world-wide commerce, without
which our present high level of civilization would be impossible. This
commerce is carried on by a system of transportation which places at the
command of the people of each community the products of the world.
To no line of human activity are the adequate and efficient transporta-
tion facilities more essential than to the cotton textile industry. Cotton is
the most widely used of all the textile fibres. Man has been defined as a
clothes-wearing animal, and, in the manufacture of clothes, no other ma-
terial is so largely used as cotton. This fibre, which is in universal use
wherever human beings live, cannot be produced at all in many localities,
and can be produced most advantageously only in certain comparatively
restricted regions. Leaving aside the comparatively small production of
China, South and Central America, the West Indies, and other localities
where cotton growing has been attempted, the commercial crop of the
world is produced by the United States, India, and Egypt, and whatever may
be the future of the efforts being made to extend the cultivation of cotton
OF THE UNITED STATES 29
in other regions, the world must now, and for the immediate future, depend
for approximately sixty-five jjer cent of its cotton fibre upon the Southern
section of the United States.
The universal character of the demand for cotton fibre and the com-
parative restriction of the localities in which it can be successfully produced
make the industries of the production of this fibre, its preparation for use,
and its distribution, peculiarly dependent upon transportation. Transpor-
tation enters into the production of a piece of cotton goods even before the
seed in planted in the ground, for, except in the Nile Valley and a few
other localities especially favored by natural conditions, the use of fertilizers
is essential to successful cotton production, and transportation is essential
to the distribution of commercial fertilizers. Following the production of
the crop, the seed cotton must first be carried to the gin, from thence the
seed is carried to the oil mill, and the lint to the textile mill, either directly,
or after having first passed through the compress. To trace the lint cotton
through all of its various stages of manufacture into articles for final use,
and to trace the distribution of these articles would involve an account of
the transportation system of the world, embracing every means of water
carriage on ocean, lake, river, and canal, every railway line in every country,
and every wagon road and pack train route throughout the world.
Adequately to perform this task would require years of labor and the results
would fill volumes. Within the scope of a single chapter little more can
be done than to consider, in a broad way, the interrelations of the cotton
textile and transportation industries.
As the principal region of cotton production is in the Southern section
of the United States, we are chiefly interested in the development of trans-
portation in its relation to the American crop.. Prior to the invention of
the cotton-gin, the commerce of the Southern section of the United States
was confined almost entirely to localities bordering on the seacoast and
the navigable rivers. Shipments from Charleston, which was the most
important port on the southeastern coast, were composed principally of
lumber, naval stores, rice, and Sea Island cotton, all products of the coastal
plane and the adjacent islands. In a general way similar conditions existed
at each of the other South Atlantic and Gulf ports, the commerce being
only such as could be collected by coastwise and river navigation. Follow-
ing the invention of the cotton-gin and the rapid development of the Upland
cotton industry in the Piedmont Belt, extending from Southern Virginia
to Central Alabama and in Western Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana,
there was a radical change in agricultural conditions and a need of increased
facilities for transportation. The annual production of cotton, which in
1790 was equivalent to 3,138 bales of 500 pounds each, increased rapidly
to 73,222 bales in 1800; 177,824 bales in 1810; 334,728 bales in 1820, and
732,218 bales in 1830.
The principal market for cotton was in England, with some demand
30 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
in New England, where at least one mill had been established five years
before the invention of the cotton-gin, and where the industry began to
thrive about the beginning of the nineteenth century. To 1-each either
market, cotton from the interior had to be carried to the coast. ( See Plate
3.) In the western section this was a comparatively easy matter, for the
lands adjacent to the river courses had been first settled, and that section
was plentifully supplied with navigable streams flowing directly to the
Gulf or to the Mississippi. It was in the eastern or Piedmont Belt that the
need of improved transportation facilities was most felt by the cotton
growers. Most of the streams flowing into the Atlantic were shallow, and in
no case were they navigable into the Piedmont section. Before the con-
struction of railways the problem of the cotton planter of the Piedmont
section was to get his product to the head of navigation. As the season for
marketing was during the late fall and winter, when draft animals were not
needed on the farm, long wagon hauls were practicable, but as late as 181 8,
Colonel Abraham Blanding estimated that two-thirds of the market crops
of South Carolina were produced within five miles of some river on which,
at least, down-stream navigation was possible, and that practically all of the
remainder were produced within ten miles of such streams.
Various expedients for carrying cotton to the ports by the river ways
were resorted to. A distinct type of boat, known as the "cotton-box," was
developed. This was a flat boat with high sides, which, when it had been
filled with cotton, was floated downstream, and at the end of the down trip
was sold for lumber. Steamboats were early introduced on the Southern
streams, on those of the Western cotton belt and on some of those flowing
into the Atlantic, notably on the Savannah River below Augusta, were
highly efficient. (See Plate 3.)
The establishment of steamboat navigation on the Savannah hastened
the construction of railways which were to prove the ultimate solution of
the transportation problem of the cotton belt. The people of Charleston
saw trade being diverted more and more to Savannah by way of the river.
After various other plans had been tried, they undertook what was then the
bold experiment of attempting to divert traffic from the head of navigation
in the Savannah to Charleston by railway. The result was the construction
of the railway from Charleston to Hamburg, which when it had been
completed for its entire length of 136 miles in 1833 was the longest railway
in the world. The success of this enterprise was soon followed by the con-
struction of other lines, and railway development in the South continued
until the devastating Civil War arrested Southern progress for the time
being. By 1S60 the Southern States had the skeleton of a relatively com-
plete railway system, which afforded reasonably satisfactory facilities for
the commerce of that period.
From 1792 until the war period, and to a less extent for two decades after
the close of that conflict, the economic development of the South was
OF THE UNITED STATES 31
dominated by cotton. The profits that could be reaHzed from the produc-
tion of this great staple led to the neglect of other forms of agriculture,
and little progress was made in manufacturing of any kind. The people
of most communities concentrated all their energies on the production of
cotton, with the proceeds of which they bought not only manufactured
articles, but food stufifs which, under a more diversified system of agricul-
ture, they would have produced at home. The consequence was that the
transportation problem of the South at that period was the carrying of
cotton to the seaboard and the carrying into the South of food stufifs and
manufactured commodities produced in other localities. Hence it was that
the earliest Southern railways led from the cotton fields to the seaports
and river towns, and that they were soon supplemented by lines from the
North and Northwest by way of the Tenne.ssee and Shenandoah Valleys.
(See Plate 3.)
The application of steam to ocean navigation played an important part
in shaping the course of cotton traffic on land as well as on water. Steam
made the mariner independent of the ocean currents and the winds, and
gave to the shorter routes advantages they had never had before. The
effect was to increase the relative importance of the North Atlantic ports
of the United States as compared with those of the South Atlantic and the
Gulf, and when rail facilities became available, a larger proportion of the
transatlantic cotton traffic was carried through Norfolk, Baltimore, Phila-
delphia, and New York. In later years Southern ports, notably those of
the Gulf, in close proximity to the Central and Western cotton fields, have
been regaining much of the ocean traffic.
Economic conditions in the cotton belt, prior to the beginning of the
industrial development and the greater diversification of agriculture, which
began about 1880, were, in some respects, very unfavorable to railway con-
struction and operation. Owing to the sparseness of population in most
localities, passenger traffic was generally unremunerative, and, on many
of the roads, freight traffic was confined almost entirely to cotton and to the
relatively small quantities of commodities required for consumption along
their lines. On these cotton-carrying roads there was a great rush of
business for a few months and, stagnation for the remainder of the year.
They were compelled to look for their revenues to the traffic hauled 15e-
tween September and January.
The industrial awakening of the South, about two decades after the
Civil War, led to important changes in the relation of Southern transporta-
tion lines to the textile traffic. Railways which had theretofore been simply
carriers of cotton became carriers of cotton goods and other manufactured
commodities as well. Altliough cotton manufacturing had been carried
on in the South as a household industry from a very early day and a mill
was put in operation near Statesburg, S. C, in 1790, it was not until tRe
decade between 1880 and 1890 that the real development of the Southern
32 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
cotton textile industry began. From that time on the economic law which
tends to concentrate manufacturing in proximity to the sources of raw
materials, has been working for the Southern mill industry, and it is inev-
itable that sooner or later, if Southern supremacy in cotton production is
maintained, the greater part of the world's supply of coarse cotton goods
and a large proportion of the finer goods as well, will be manufactured in
the Southern mills.
As recently as 1880, the consumption of Southern cotton mills amounted
to but 188,748 bales, equivalent to only a little more than three per cent
of the American crop of 5,755,359 bales produced in that year. In 1907,
the Southern mills consumed 2,410,993 bales, equivalent to more than
eighteen per cent of the crop of 13,305,265 bales produced in that year.
In addition to Virginia, where the total production in 1907 was but 14,602
bales, while the mill consumption was 68,668 bales, North Carolina, one of
the distinctively cotton States, has become a net importer of cotton — the
mill consumption in 1907 having been 770,275 bales, and the total production
of the State 626,642 bales. On the basis of the figures for 1907, about
eighteen per cent of the American crop is consumed in the cotton-produc--
ing States ; about the same amount is used by other mills in the United
States, and the remaining sixty-four per cent is exported, going chiefly
to England and Continental Europe. The future may be expected to see
an increase in the proportion used in the cotton States and decreases in the
proportions shipped to other States and exported.
The development of the textile industry in the cotton States has neces-
sarily resulted in radical changes in the volume and direction of currents
of traffic. In the early days the movement was practically all from the
interior to the South Atlantic and Gulf ports, and thence by sea to Europe
or New England. Later, with the construction of North and South rail-
way lines, there came about a rail movement to the more northerly ports
and direct to northern mills. These movements still continue, but they are
now crossed in every direction by cotton moving to Southern mills. This
movement to Southern mills is more complicated than might be supposed,
for the reason that, generally speaking, a mill is not able to secure all of
its cotton in its immediate neighborhood. While, in the aggregate, a con-
siderable amount of cotton is sold directly from the plantation to a nearby
mill and is not hauled by rail until it has been made up into yarn or cloth,
the requirements of mills for particular grades of material are such that a
mill in North Carolina, for instance, may buy cotton produced in Alabama
or Texas, while cotton produced in its immediate locality may be shipped to
some other State or to Europe. Mills in Upland cotton regions may re-
quire for the particular class of good they are making, a certain proportion
of Egyptian cotton, or Sea Island cotton, and thus cotton produced in
widely separated localities may finally meet in a single piece of goods.
Changes in economic conditions and in the centres of manufacturing.
to
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OF THE UNITED STATES 33
have brought about changes in the currents of traffic in cotton goods as
well as the raw material. As the manuacturing industry in Europe, and
especially in England, antedated the development of production on a large
scale in the United States, it was inevitable that the established industry
should hold the market, and hence, just as the traffic in raw cotton centred
toward the European mills, the currents of traffic in manufactured goods
diverged from these mills. Thus as late as 1859, the last year before the
Civil War period, we find that exports of cotton were equivalent to 3,535,-
373 bales on the basis of 500 pounds to the bale, while consumption in the
United States amounted to only 845,410 bales.
The first effect of the rise of the New England industry was to reduce
the volume of imports of the coarser grades of cotton goods. As the New
England industry grew, it supplied constantly a larger percentage of the
domestic demand, not only for coarse goods, but for finer grades as well,
and began to compete in foreign markets. Then came the Southern
industry, competing first in the domestic market for coarser fabrics, but
soon invading the export field and following the example of New England
by taking up the manufacture of finer goods as well. This tendency of the
Southern mills to manufacture finer goods is shown by the fact that the
amount of fine yarns spun by them increased from 886,200 pounds in 1900,
to 17,858,453 pounds in 1905.
The growth of the cotton mill industries of the Northern and Southern
States and the diversification of their products, has been reflected in the
transportation of cotton goods. The currents of traffic still flow from
European mills in constantly greater aggregate volume, though in some
directions the flow has been diminished and they are now crossed in all
directions and met in the markets of the world by currents of traffic from
both the Northern and Southern sections of the United States, and in
some of the Oriental markets are meeting with an increasing output from
the mills of India and Japan.
Just as the growth of the Southern manufacturing industry has pro-
foundly affected the transportation of raw cotton, so has it affected the
domestic transportation of cotton goods. Prior to the time when the .
Southern mills became a factor in the situation, the lines of traffic in the
United States were from the Eastern manufacturing centres and the ports,
to the interior. Movements from Southern points, either for domestic
consumption or for export, were inconsequential. All this has now been
changed, and, although there is still a large movement into the South of
foreign and domestic goods, and even a return movement of Southern goods
shipped back to the South after having been bleached and finished in the
North, this is of small proportions in comparison with the large and steadily
increasing movement of the products of Southern mills to domestic markets
and to the ports of the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Gulf for export.
The demand for cotton goods is increasing not only with the increased
34
TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
population of the world, but also with the advance in the standard of living
which is slowly, but surely, taking place in many regions as a result of
higher civilization and more stable political conditions. The cotton planter
of the United States, with such assistance as other regions may be able
to give him, is capable of keeping pace with this demand. It is the task
of those of us who are engaged in the business of transportation to carry
the raw cotton to the mill and to carry the finished product to the utter-
most ends of the earth on such terms that cotton fabrics shall be within reach
alike of the lady of fashion, who pays at the rate of twenty dollars per
pound for Swiss embroideries, or the Manchurian peasant, who pays at
the rate of twenty cents a pound for the material for jiis clothing.
OF THE UNITED STATES 35
COTTON SPECULATION IN AMERICA
BY CARL GELLER
Real estate speculation flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. Fore-
stallers in grain and flour have amassed fortunes ever since the days of
Joseph in Egypt. Spices were "cornered" in the Middle Ages. South
Sea and Mississippi stock were the basis of furious speculation early
in the eighteenth century. Cotton speculation, on the other hand, is barely
a hundred years old, but during those hundred years more venturing has
Been done on the rise and fall in prices of this staple than of any other
commodity. Long before the "futures" system was introduced, cotton
furnished sport for daring operators and merchant princes. Of course,
when the cotton crop amounted to only a million bales or so, speculative
"lines" did not run to half a million bales, as they frequently have done
since 1890, but relatively speaking, a venture of ten thousand bales some
ninety years ago was as momentous an undertaking as twenty times that
amount would be nowadays. If a venture pans out badly now, the operator
can shift his burden by covering himself in other options or markets.
Such facilities were nonexistent before the Civil War, and only a mighty
deep purse could save a man if he found the market going steadily against
him. This accounts for the enormous fluctuations in cotton prices recorded
within a very few weeks, often within a couple of days, in times gone by.
It may be worth while chronicling a few of the more important events
in the reigns of the various American cotton kings.
Very little is known about the pioneers of the American cotton trade.
In the eighteenth century it was the custom to consign cotton along with
other products to London, Liverpool, Havre, and Hamburg merchants,
who remitted the proceeds in manufactured products of their countries.
In the second decade of the nineteenth century there appears upon the
scene a merchant who may fairly be considered the prototype of the
modern cotton speculator. His name was Vincent Nolte. Of German
descent, though bom at Leghorn, in Italy, he acquired his mercantile
training at Leghorn, Hamburg and Nantes. Quite early he was thrown
in contact with the leading commercial spirits of that period, and, being
possessed of great self-reliance, business ability and a thorough knowledge
of modern languages, he was entrusted while still a young man with the
management of extensive financial ventures; for instance, the transfer of
large quantities of silver coin from Mexico via the United States to Eng-
36 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
land, a risky undertaking in those troublous times. He acquitted himself
to the satisfaction of his principals and his share of the profits enabled
him to make a start on his own account. In the course of his travels, in
1806, he had visited New Orleans and resolved to settle there, returning
late in 181 1. NoJte's arrival at the Southern port coincided with the
outbreak of hostilities between this country and England. Although the
war checked trade, Nolte found plenty of outlet for his venturesome
spirit. The English had blockaded the mouth of the Mississippi, and
cotton stored at New Orleans was a drug in the market. Nolte bought
250 bales of cotton at 11 cents per pound and brought them on a small
craft through Lakes Borgne and Pontchartrain and Mobile Bay to Pen-
sacola, where he sold the cotton at 22 cents, investing the proceeds in
woolen blankets which he sold on his return to New Orleans at a splendid
profit. During the defence of New Orleans it was found difficult to properly
mount heavy cannon on the marshy ground around the city and recourse
was had to platforms of cotton bales. A cargo of 245 bales of good
cotton belonging to Nolte was confiscated for that purpose by General
Jackson. Nolte. who had enlisted as a volunteer, protested against the
use of this good cotton when plenty of low-grade cotton could be had
in the city at much lower prices, but was told that as it was his own
cotton, he at least would think it no hardship to defend it. Although
he had bought the lot a short while before at 10 cents, his claim at that
price was rejected, because on the morning of the battle a New Orleans
broker had sold him another lot of good cotton at 7 cents, the owner
anticipating the defeat of the American troops and fearing to lose every-
thing in the sack likely to follow the capture of the city. General Jackson
had heard of this transaction and decided that 7 cents was the market
price at which Nolte should be indemnified. The defeat of the English
showed Nolte's good judgment, and three days later a vessel brought news
of the treaty of Ghent and the end of the war. At one bound cotton
prices jumped to 16 cents, and finally the indemnity commission passed
Nolte's claim for the 245 bales at 10 cents. lie tells us that some of the
French settlers, weary of war times and desirous to spend their declining
years in peace and quiet at home, now took opportunity to leave New
Orleans. As no exchange was to be had, they invested their savings
in cotton, which cost them about 12 cents per pound. The freight to
Havre amounted to 7I/2 cents per pound.
From 181 5 to 181 7 Nolte was in Europe extending his business con-
nections among the French and English cotton importers. During his
absence several competitors arrived at New Orleans from Europe, notably
two Scotch houses who exported raw cotton and imported manufactured
goods, principally Manchester and Glasgow cotton goods. They were
clannish, worked together, and, being in close touch with the English
markets, often used their superior sources of information to spread un-
OF THE UNITED STATES 37
favorable news about the state of the British cotton trade whenever they
felt like buying or wished to scare away intending purchasers of cotton.
During his stay in England, Nolte had come to the conclusion that cotton
was bound to advance in value, and immediately on his return bought
heavily. Shortly afterward the Scotch houses also began to buy, notwith-
standing the pretended "bearish" news they had from home, and Nolte
made a handsome profit on his purchases. Step by step his position in
the market became more influential. He was the first one to send out
printed advices on the cotton market and the crops, accompanied by
diagrams of the course of prices from week to week, the variations of
the rate of exchange being shown in a different color. These tables
proved a great success and brought Nolte many orders from Europe.
On an average he bought 18,000 bales a season, as compared with some
7,000 bales bought by his competitors, but during the season of 1820-21
his shipments rose to 40,000 bales, the greater part of which he had
bought quietly before the other New Orleans buyers were aware of the
fact. As prices rose sharply, his heavy purchases turned out very profit-
able, and these fortunate results induced many of his French corres-
pondents to entrust him with large discretionary buying orders. With
the prospect of a good demand from England, the shipping season in
1821 opened at 20 cents, as compared with 16 cents the previous year.
The crop was, however, a large one, and prices quickly declined so that
his purchases on reaching Europe showed a heavy loss. A great deal of
the cotton bought on discretionary orders was thrown on Nolte's hands
and the drafts were allowed to go to protest. In the autumn of 1824 the
Liverpool cotton merchants anticipated a considerable advance in cotton
prices. The speculative fever was in the air. All sorts of financial
schemes were launched and found ready subscribers. Havre experienced
a cotton corner, the entire local stock of 10,000 bales having been bought
up by one dealer. It is worthy of note that one of the leading Liverjxx)!
firms, the Quaker house of Cropper, Benson & Co.. at that time issued
a circular predicting small cotton crops henceforth, in consequence of
the abolition of the slave trade and the probable annual decrease of the
colored population of the Southern States. Late in 1824 the surplus of
stocks resulting from previous- large cotton crops had been absorbed by
the mills, and much anxiety was felt in Liverpool concerning an early
arrival of fresh supplies from the United States. Nolte was in England
in the fall of 1824, and on his return to New Orleans he found that instead
of an export of 150,000 bales during October and November, 1824, on
which Liverpool had relied, scarcely 30,000 bales had been shipped, and
not more than 20,000 bales could possibly be exported during December.
In anticipation of higher prices, Nolte bought at once 5,000 bales, and when
on February 14, 1825, he received the news of the close of the Liverpool
market on December 21, 1824, with an order to buy 10,000 bales, he was
38 ' TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
amply prepared. Liverpool had risen one penny when the inadequacy of the
local stock had been ascertained and New Orleans jumped 3 cents on receipt
of the Liverpool mail. On the lot of 5,000 bales so judiciously bought, Nolte
made a profit of $60,000, and on one consignment of 950 bales he gained
$55,000. Prices in England rose no per cent, but spinners curtailed their
purchases and fell back on their reserve stocks, which proved far heavier
than the Liverpool merchants had anticipated. Brazil, which did not as a
rule ship more than 175,000 bales a season, all at once doubled her exports.
There was a deadlock for a time ; importers and merchants held firmly to
their price, and spinners kept out of the market. In May, 1825, a Glasgow
house received 5,000 bales from New Orleans and determined to oflFer the
entire quantity for sale. The Liverpool merchants implored them not to
sell below the price set by the "bull" clique, but deaf to their entreaties the
Glasgow people sold the 5,000 bales at a concession of 2I/. pence per pound.
The bubble burst and prices declined rapidly, the more so as the new crop
proved to be unusually large. Nolte was entangled by engagements not to
sell his cotton stored at Liverpool without the consent of his English friends.
Shortly before the collapse he had sold 6,000 bales to a Charleston dealer.
The promised remittance failed to come, and when in Liverpool cotton
prices tumbled from 16 pence in April to 9I/4 pence in July, causing the
suspensions of many of his Liverpool friends and also of his Charleston
correspondent, Nolte failed with liabilities of $1,200,000. During the next
few years he was engaged in winding up his afifairs and spent most of his
time in Europe. At one time he did a profitable business in supplying arms
to the French militia, thanks to his friendship with Lafayette, whose
acquaintance he had made in America. Some twelve years later he returned
for a brief spell to the cotton market, but the chief part was then played by
another man, Nicholas Biddle.
Riddle's operations in the cotton market are not so well defined as were
Nolte's. In the main, Biddle was a financier and his connection with the
cotton market arose out of his intimate relations with the Southern State
authorities and banks.
Biddle was president of the Bank of the United States, of Philadel-
phia, the foremost banking institution of the country. It had formerly been
under Federal charter, but incurred the enmity of President Jackson, who
persistently vetoed the renewal of the charter. The bank therefore con-
tinued under charter of the State of Pennsylvania. Interstate business was
denied the bank, but it managed in various ways to meet the difficulty. It
largely invested in Mississippi State bonds issued in 183 1 and 1833, to form
the stock of the Planters' Bank. To other Southern banks it furnished tfte
entire capital.
Early in the thirties a land boom swept over the United States, the like
of which has never been seen before or since. It affected the South partic-
ularly and caused the rapid settling of Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas.
OF THE UNITED STATES 39
Young cotton planters migrated to the Southwest from Virginia and the
Carolinas, with gangs of slaves from their paternal estates. They largely
depended for financial aid on the banks, and thanks to the backing of the
great Philadelphia institution there was no lack of banking facilities. Mis-
sissippi alone increased within five years her nominal banking capital from
$1,000,000 to $21,000,000. The credit system was carried to an extent that
can now scarcely be credited. Men with very little capital bought cotton
plantations and slaves and drew on their bankers immediately against the
yield of the first crop, before the seed had been sown. As long as cotton
prices remained highly remunerative, everybody made money, but when the
turn of the tide came, the strained credit of the South collapsed like a house
of cards. The reaction came in the spring of 1837. Cotton declined quickly
from 17 cents to 10 cents, and bankers and brokers who had made large
advances to the planters were the first to suffer. Nine-tenths of the mercan-
tile firms of Alobile failed. In New Orleans, every house of importance
went down and cotton became almost unsalable. Biddle's bank was hard hit,
but weathered the storm, and he did his utmost to revive the moribund bank-
ing institutions of the South.
Through his intimate connections with the South, Biddle had a vital
interest in the great Southern staple, and noticing the ever-increasing cotton
consumption in England, he argued that it would only be necessary to
market crops judiciously, buying up and storing any troublesome surplus,
in order to create a practical monoply and obtain good prices. In the autumn
of 1837, he sent representatives to Charleston, New Orleans and other
Southern markets to purchase enormous quantities of cotton for account
of the Bank of the United States, for shipment to Liverpool and Havre.
His eldest son, a youth of twenty years and an old unsuccessful Philadelphia
merchant, May Humphreys, he sent to Liverpool to sell this cotton. The
new firm, Humphreys & Biddle, though without knowledge of the English
cotton trade, at once obtained a larger share of the business than the
Browns, Barings, Lizardis or any other of the old-established and substantial
houses of that great cotton mart. In Havre, his consignees were the large
banking and commission firm of Hottinguer & Co. By granting facilities to
Southern banks, he induced them to make liberal advances on cotton and
to ship a large portion of it to his son's house in Liverpool. This enabled
him to control the cotton market in this country and to carry out the principle
of monopoly. The first year this colossal undertaking prospered and Biddle
decided to extend it ; in fact, he was obliged to do so if he wished to maintain
the monopoly. ?Ie found it necessary to strengthen the Southern banks which
had, as his indirect agents, induced the planters to send their cotton for sale
to Liverpool, the advances being made in depreciated paper. What South-
ern banks had survived the crash of 1837 were badly crippled, and in
the summer of 1838 their paper had fallen to a discount of 25 to 30 per cent.
It was clear to Biddle that the Southern banks could not obtain control of
40 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
the new crop unless they were enabled to resume specie payment and raise
the value of their paper to par.
Under ordinary circumstances, foreign merchants and capitalists would
have flocked to the South and purchased the cotton at a low price, consider-
ing the advantage cash would have given them over the depreciated South-
ern paper. By throwing the cotton on the Liverpool market, they would
have lowered the price and interfered with Biddle's idea of prolonging the
monopoly. Accordingly, Biddle in August and September, 1838, commenced
rebuilding the Southern banks that had engaged in the cotton trade, and
he purchased the bonds of others to enable them to go into the operation.
Biddle and a few of his Philadelphia friends, principally the officers of the
Girard Bank, began buying enormous amounts of Southern State and bank
bonds. In one week they invested about $10,000,000 in the State of Missis-
sippi. Half of this sum was distributed among four insolvent banks at a
nominal interest of 7 per cent, the principal to be repaid in three annual
instalments. These banks were the Commercial and Railroad bank of Vicks-
burg, the Planters', the Agricultural and Commercial Bank, of Natchez.
It is said that before purchasing the bonds of these banks, Biddls and his
as.sociates had bought up an immense amount of their notes at 28 per cent
discount, and in the bolstering operation they used this paper at par. The
other five millions were invested in Mississippi State bonds, to establish
the Union Bank of Jackson. This new institution soon flooded the country
with its paper and advanced as much as $60.00 per bale (of 360 lbs.) or
almost 17 cents per pound, when the average price in New York during the
previous season had not been much above 10 cents. It is true, the 1838-9
crop was decidedly a short one, furnishing only 1,360,000 bales as against
1,800,000 bales the previous season. Much of the large 1837-8 crop had
been held back by Biddle, his operations extending throughout Louisiana,
Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas. In view of the threatened
shortage, it seemed that he would be able to market at very remunerative
prices not only the 1838-9 crop, but also the balance held back out of the
previous one.
Here again our friend Nolte appears on the scene. Rich in experience
but poor in worldly goods, he had returned to the United States and in New
York met the representative of Biddle's Havre correspondents, a friend of
his. Thinking that with his knowledge of the New Orleans market he might
be useful to Biddle he obtained a letter of introduction to the great financier.
Biddle received him well, but would make no change in his New Orleans
arrangements, offering, however, to extend to Nolte banking facilities if
he wished to start again on his own account. Early in 1839 Nolte arrived at
New Orleans and awaited reports from his English friends', the Barings.
The English cotton trade had expected that the 1838-9 crop would be quite
as large as the preceding one, about 1,800,000 bales, but Nolte soon saw that
it v,'ould be much less. At the end of 1838 the Liverpool stock was reduced
OF THE UNITED STATES 41
to small proportions, and the size of the crop as well as the policy of the
U. S. Bank party were of the utmost importance. It looked as though
Biddle had attained his object of an extension of the monopoly and Nolte
as well as his English friends were hopeful of a quick and decided rise in
prices. Nolte made a start by buying 1,000 bales, although his cash capital
amounted to less than $500. He continued buying and shipping cotton for
the Barings and Browns, of Liverpool, Denistouns, of Glasgow, and Hottin-
guers, of Havre, and within a quarter of a year he had handled 37,000
bales. In the meantime, the market, instead of advancing, had persistently
declined, due to the disinclination of the spinners to buy. Seeing this, the
Bank party preferred to take no chances and offered its cotton freely. It
was the old story: mills had been buying liberally when cotton was much
cheaper and they now fell back on their reserve stocks. Consumption was
checked by the high prices of breadstuffs on account of the short grain crops
of 1838. Within a few months, Nolte again found himself in difficulties.
The cotton shipped to Europe on consignment could not readily be sold, or
only at a heavy loss, and remittances came in slowly. Nolte was imprisoned
for debt, but soon released, and at once left New Orleans forever. On his
return voyage to Europe he met a rich South Carolina planter. General
Hamilton, a friend and admirer of Biddle's. Hamilton had conceived the
idea of forming a board of information at some central point in the South-
ern States whose duty it would be to keep in touch with the condition of the
European markets, consumption, stocks, etc., and also to finance the cotton
crops of the planters. The American members of the Association should be
kept infonned as to the relative value of cotton, and those that were not
willing to sell at the market price should receive advances and entrust the
sale to the foreign agents of the board. By such means General Hamilton
hoped to make cotton prices steady and remunerative. He took a liking to
Nolte and offered him an important position on the board, but just when
Nolte was ready to return to America in furtherance of this new project,
his friends, the Hottinguers, of Havre, informed him that they would let
a draft of the U. S. Bank for 6,200,000 francs go to protest. This was
the beginning of the end of Biddle's bank and his vast schemes. The Bank
soon failed, carrying down all the banks in Pennsylvania and south of that
State. The Liverpool offshoot of the Philadelphia concern, the firm of
Humphreys & Biddle, closed its atfairs and the two members returned to
America with large fortunes.
The following decade witnessed a steady increase in cotton production,
which soon outstripped consumption. The natural result was a decline of
cotton prices to very low and unremunerative figures. The average price
for the season 1844-5 was only 5.63 cents in New York, and another low
level was seen in 1848-9, in consequence of the political disturbances in
Europe. With the discovery of gold in California and Australia, a general
trade revival set in, which lasted until the beginning of the Civil War,
42 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
enhancing cotton prices and improving the lot of the sorely-tried cotton
planter. Late in the fifties, consumption had again outgrown production,
and English spinners became anxious about a sufficient suppply of raw mate-
rial. The Manchester Cotton Supply Association was formed, and seed,
tools, gins, instruction and teachers were sent to every likely and unlikely
corner of the earth. It is an interesting question whether this expensive
propaganda would have achieved any results worth mentioning but for the
cotton famine caused by the Civil War. The fact that with the return of
normal conditions in the South these schemes utterly failed everywhere
should answer it negatively. '
During the Civil War, individual speculative deals in cotton were quite
common, but the enormous fluctuations, extending at times to fifty and even
sixty cents per pound in a single fortnight, limited cotton speculation to
comparatively small quantities. At this time, "futures" were first intro-
duced, as the mills were unwilling to run the risk of the tremendous price
fluctuations. They bought certain quantities of cotton at a determined price
for delivery at stated later periods, and the New York brokers who sold them
the futures had to cover their risk in other directions, either by securing
the spot cotton or by buying futures from other brokers or operators. These
transactions were, however, merely private deals, were not officially
recorded and did not attain great importance, but the fact remains that the
"futures'' system owes its inception to the time of stress and uncertainty
during the Civil War.
During the entire war, there were several million bales of cotton locked
up in the South, where it was a drug in the market, while in the North and
in Europe it commanded fabulous prices. Blockade running became a very
profitable, if risky, business. A good deal of cotton ran the blockade from
Charleston, Mobile and Wilmington to England via the Bermudas, and
during the years 1862, 1863 and 1864, some 400,000 bales of American
cotton managed to get into Liverpool. In the early stages of the war, many
thousand bales were shipped from Liverpool to New York. In 1863, the
Confederate Government placed a loan of £3,000,000 in England, paying
seven per cent interest. It was readily subscribed, because any bondholder
could, by giving sixty days' notice, demand the payment of his bond in
cotton at sixpence per pound delivered in the interior of America, within ten
miles of a railroad during the war, and on consummation of peace at one of
the Southern ports. The value of this Confederate stock to an English
cotton merchant can easily be understood. The bonds could soon be bought
at a discount of fifty per cent wliich reduced the purchase price of the
cotton to threepence. Fitting up a ship with manufactured goods and run-
ning the blockade into one of the Southern ports, the English merchant couTd
sell his goods at an enormous profit, claim his cotton for the face value of
the bond, reload his ship with cotton, and if he was successful in running
the blockade outward, he could sell his cotton at a profit of 600 to 800 per
OF THE UNITED STATES 43
cent. It was said that the capture of seven vessels would not cause loss, if
the eighth vessel were successful. Toward the end of the war, the gradual
advance of the Federal lines opened up some cotton territory and released
the cotton stored there. Plach Northern victory was therefore followed by
a sharp slump. Sherman's march from Atlanta to the sea caused cotton to
drop from $1.80 to $1.00. The late Edward Matthews, father of Professor
Brander Matthews, of simplified spelling fame, had the happy faculty of
getting cotton through the lines wherever the Union army advanced. The
Federal Government did not look with favor on this cotton traffic. It put
money into the hands of the South, whereas it was Northern policy that
cotton should remain a useless commodity while it stayed in the South.
Charles A. Dana, later the brilliant editor of the New York "Sun," entered
into partnership with Roscoe Conkling toward the close of 1862 for the pur-
pose of buying cotton in such parts of the Mississippi valley as had been
occupied by the Union forces. He soon became convinced, however, that to
permit the purchase of cotton within military lines was bad for the Federal
Government and should be stopped. He pointed out that the mania to
acquire sudden fortunes by cotton speculation had already to an alarming
extent corrupted and demoralized the army, and he urged President Lincoln
and Secretary of War Stanton to put an end to the cotton traffic within
the military lines. The close of the war released some 2,500,000 bales of
cotton held in the South, worth about $400,000,000. About three-quarters
of this amount was taken by Europe and gave this country the value of
$300,000,000 in gold. The liquidation of this valuable asset did much to
re-establish the shattered credit and finances of the United States.
After the war there followed the dark days of reconstruction. Labor
conditions were topsy-turvy, most planters heavily in debt, and the Southern
cotton factors bankrupt, almost to a man. The advances they had made
just prior to the war to farmers and planters had never been repaid. What
financial aid could be rendered, had to come from the North, and in this
way New York suddenly forged ahead as a cotton market. A good many
Southerners came North and made fortunes. To mention but a few, there
were R. T. Wilson, from Tennessee, John C. Latham, from Kentucky,
Archibald B. Gwathmey, from Virginia, and John H. Inman, from Georgia.
The last named became a power in- the cotton trade and cotton speculation.
Coming to New York soon after the war with $100 in his pocket, he even-
tually turned this into $10,000,000. To his career we will revert at greater
length later.
The five years after the Civil VV^ar were a period of sudden price fluc-
tuations. Advances and declines of five cents in a week were by no means
uncommon, and cotton trading and spinning was a very risky business. We
have already shown how during the war the system of trading in futures
had sprung up. It found ever-widening acceptance, particularly after the
organization of the New York Cotton Exchange and the introduction of
44 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
regular methods and rules for futures trading. Free use began to be made
of the insurance feature of the futures system by the mills, not only in this
country but also in Europe. Futures, like everything else, may be put to
illegitimate uses, but it is absolutely certain that the introduction of the system
has had a salutary, because steadying, influence on the course of prices.
With a cotton spinner the main thing is the price of the raw material, but a
consideration almost as important is that there be a certain stability of ihe
market which permits him to make his calculations ahead for some length
of time. Before the era of futures, an even approximate stability of the mar-
ket was not to be thought of, but the introduction of futures tended to lessen
fluctuations by extending the upward or downward swing over a longer
period. If prices are high, there are always cool heads ready to sell for
deferred delivery, and when the expected decline sets in, their buying to
secure profits tends to hold and steady the market. If prices are low, there
are always shrewd men to pick up cotton in the shape of futures, this pre-
venting or delaying a further decline, and on a rise their re-sales act as a
brake. Mr. Henry Hentz, one of the oldest and most respected cotton
merchants in the New York market, said some time ago: "During 1866 and
1867, before the New York Cotton Exchange was established, cotton dropped
from two shillings to sevenpence in Liverpool. The crop of 1867-8 was a
very small one, only about 2,500,000 bales, and it was taxed 2 cents a pound
by the Government. Now, I say with emphasis, cotton would never have
dropped to such a low point — it subsequently advanced to 33 cents in
1868-9 — had there been an opportunity for the holders to hedge their hold-
ings by the sale of futures." The futures system enables the planter to sell
part or the whole of his crop when the price appears attractive to him,
months before his crop is gathered. The spinner can buy his supply for
many months to come, whenever the price seems low enough to him, simply
by buying futures. He need not even go into the market and exchange his
contracts for actual cotton, although he may do so. He can simply regard
his futures purchase as an insurance against a rise in the market.
With the return of settled labor conditions in the South, with the
gradual cutting up of the large cotton plantations into smaller holdings, with
a steady increase in acreage and a gradual displacement of colored by more
efficient white labor, production slowly but surely gained on consumption.
For a time the trade boom in this country and the crop failure of 1871 held
prices steady, but the adoption of the gold standard by Germany in 1873, and
other countries subsec|uently. caused a steady appreciation of gold and a
corresponding decline in prices of all commodities. "Sell, even if you have
to repent," became the guiding rule for the large New York, New Orleans,
Liverpool and Manchester houses, and considerable fortunes were built up
through steady adherence to this principle. There was no spectacular spec-
ulation in this. It was the steady grinding down of values by the apprecia-
tion of gold, incidentally helped by the increasing supply of cotton and by
OF THE UNITED STATES 45
enormous "short" sales that gathered the golden harvest for large houses,
many of whom were ably managed by the keen, calculating genius of the He-
brew race. Their operations were much facilitated by the gradual spread of
the futures system. In 1870-1 only 2,500,000 bales were traded in for future
delivery on the New York Cotton Exchange, and a great part of this was
actually delivered on maturity of the contract. In 1874-5 the sales of futures
in New York amounted to 8,357,000 bales, in 1879-80 to 34,000,000 and in
1895-6 to 55,000,000, while New Orleans traded during that season in 15,-
500,000 bales. The average price declined from 17 cents in 1870-1 to 15
cents in 1874-5, 12 cents in 1879-80 and 614 cents in 1894-5.
During these twenty-five years some efforts at speculative manipulation
were made by several operators. More or less unintentionally, a cotton
corner had been brought about early in the seventies by the large manufac-
turing firm of Garner & Co. Runge, of Galveston, late in the eighties, tried
to corner both wheat and cotton, but failed. D. G. Watts and Sol Ranger
made a name as successful speculative cotton merchants. Inman was active
at times both on the "bull" and the "bear" side, though generally as a
"bull," and his operations were keenly watched by the market. It is said
that at times his "line" would reach and exceed 500,000 bales, spots and
futures.
The first ten million crop, in 1894-5, depressed prices below 6 cents,
and early in 1895 cotton had few friends. Inman began buying on a very
large scale early in the spring, when spot cotton was selling at about 51^
cents in the New York market. The country was just recovering from tfie
period of financial and commercial depression following the panic of 1893.
Inman was one of the first to recognize the change for the better, and to
appreciate its importance to the cotton trade. He steadily bought both spot
cotton and futures in all markets. He accumulated an enormous line, esti-
mated by many at about one million bales, but after an advance of 2 cents
he realized his profit and closed the deal early in June. The market declined
slightly, but then a drought began in the South, which turned out to be the
most serious in the history of the cotton belt up to that year. It extended
from the beginning of July to the early part of October, with hardly any
rainfall to relieve it. This cut oiif the early prospects of the crop from nine
and a-half million to eight million by the middle of August and to seven
million by the end of September. . Encouraged by this virtual crop failure,
Peter Labouisse, of New Orleans, started to buy heavily. He had a large
and enthusiastic following, mainly in the South. Prices kept advancing and
cotton went from 7 cents to 9^/4 cents, the bull movement not culminating
until the middle of October. Labouisse carried his bull campaign so far and
the markets became so congested from heavily overbought conditions, that
he was unable to unload and secure his profits. He knew the market would
break the moment he tried to do so. He bought as long as he could and
his friends followed him, but the crash finally came through attention being
46 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
called to the weakness of the speculative position, and when other specu-
lators tried to sell out, a panic ensued which lasted from Friday afternoon
until the following Monday night. In less than a dozen trading hours,
prices for the various options broke nearly i% cents per pound. Cliques
had to be formed in New York, even among the bear element and outside
interests to protect the market from running into greater disaster. The
stock market, too, was shaken by the collapse, and at New Orleans four
firms went to the wall. Labouisse was compelled to retire from business
and there were many pitiful stories told of how his sudden reverse and loss
of over $3,000,000 in paper profits affected him.
In 1896 John Inman, after many a brilliant and successful campaign,
met with defeat. As the supply was small and the prospect for the new
crop unusually promising, he bought near options and sold new crop options
on a very large scale. At one time, the difference between August, the last
old crop option, arid October, a new crop option, was about a cent and the
"straddle" looked highly profitable. In July, drought set in again and cut the
crop off to the extent of a million bales. New crop options gained rapidly
on old crops, and toward the end of August, that option was below October.
It was reported at the time that Inman had lost a good slice of his fortune.
His defeat, which was his first serious one, so preyed upon his mind that
his health broke down. He keenly felt the decline of his prestige and the
heavy losses of his friends, who followed him in his operations, and was
compelled to withdraw from business.
About this time, a new power in the cotton market made its appearance.
Theodore H. Price, a Southerner by parentage, a close student of cotton
lore and statistics, who had been brought up in the cotton trade in all its
ramifications, now began to enter at times into large deals, though his opera-
tions at that period cannot be compared in magnitude with his later ventures.
Mr. Price, then a member of the firm of Price, McCormick & Co., under-
took to gather a large following, and his circulars began to attract general
attention, not only in this country, but also in Europe.
The year 1896 marked the lowest point of depression in commodity
prices, and from then on the depreciation of gold and the corresponding
appreciation of commodity values set in. The Transvaal, American and
Canadian mines began to yield an ever-increasing supply of gold, and as by
this time most civilized nations had accumulated the gold stocks necessary
to serve as basis for the universally accepted gold standard, the influence of
the growing gold supply on commodity values was henceforth unhampered.
Depressed though prices were by the two enormous crops of 1897 and 1898,
the market was able to make a determined stand at 5V^ cents and the "bears"
could not budge it. Henceforth it has been "Sell and Repent"' with a ven-
geance for many of the large houses, and a good slice of the fortunes built
up by steady and successful short selling between 1873 and 1896 has since
been lopped off.
OF THE UNITED STATES 47
On the two large crops of 1897 and 1898, there followed in 1899 a
very short one. Theodore H. Price was one of the first to recognize the
crop failure. He started bulling the market in August, 1899, when prices
were still around 6 cents, and in spite of the indifference of European
markets and London predictions of an eleven million crop, pushed values
steadily upward to 772 cents at the end of the year.
During Mr. Price's bull campaign in the fall of 1899, there happened
a tragi-comic byplay which is well worth recalling.
On September 29, 1899, New York had given itself up to the full enjoy-
ment of "Dewey Day." The week had been a strenuous one for the cotton
brokers, as between Monday and Thursday, September 25 to 28, cotton had
advanced some fifty points. Glad of the rest or respite, as the case might
be, many New York brokers had gone to the country. All the other cotton
exchanges were open for business as usual. It would seem that the regular
staff of the New York office of the Western Union Telegraph Co. had also
taken a day off, and a "green" man was apparently entrusted with the trans-
mission of the official Liverpool market cables to New Orleans and the other
exchanges. It seems to have been the practice to note each fluctuation, as it
was reported from Liverpool, against the closing price of the previous day,
but the "green" man added them collectively. Starting with reporting a
decline of some 5.64 points, or 15 American points, he soon varied the tune
and kept on reporting advances, piling agony on agony for the unhappy
shorts until he had managed to gather together an advance of 82!/^ English
points, equal to 250 American points, or $12.50 per bale. New York
being closed, New Orleans had all the trading to herself and wild
excitement reigned. The surging, gesticulating, shouting, yelling, dis-
hevelled mass of men around the fountain on the New Orleans Cotton Ex-
change screamed at one another like maniacs, and never in the history of the
Exchange have such hair-raising scenes been enacted. The steady ad-
vance by jumps of 2.64 points and at times 3.64 points at last aroused
suspicion, and the Exchange was closed before the innocent instigator of
the excitement had gotten through his entire schedule of advances. Direct
communication with Liverpool revealed the fact that very little change
had occurred, and all trades done on the basis of the erroneous Liver-
pool quotations were declared void. Very heavy losses were, however,
sustained by some traders, and much confusion and actual damage was
caused at the Interior markets which had received the Liverpool quotations
via New Orleans, Galveston, Houston, Savannah, Charleston, Augusta,
Little Rock, Atlanta, Mobile, etc., had been infected by the sudden bull fever
and large quantities of spot cotton were readily bought. The New England
markets had received the same erroneous quotations and kept the wires busy
with accepting overnight offers from Southern factors which the latter were
just as eager to withdraw. The Southern cotton merchants peremptorily
wired their interior agents: "Buy cotton." When asked at what price, the
48 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
only reply was: "Buy cotton; too busy to talk," and they bought cotton, lots
of it. Some of the country buyers sent men on swift horses scurrying along
country highways and clearing out crossroad stores of private stocks of
cotton, at advances of $i.oo to $2.00 a bale. By the time the news came that
the Liverpool advance was bogus, these agents were beyond reach and kept
hurrying on, buying cotton at a big loss long after their employers knew the
story of their undoing. One large Savannah house bought 5,000 bales in
the interior at an advance of about $1.50 a bale. When the mistake was
finally discovered, the reaction was equally intense on all the Exchanges.
Before the tangle was fairly straightened out, much loss had to be pocketed
and a great deal of litigation ensued. But for the prompt action of the
New Orleans Cotton Exchange, in suspending the session, losses would have
been much greater.
To understand the ready acceptance of the erroneous quotation.s, it must
be borne in mind that traders were keyed up for bullish news. As we
pointed out, there had been a good advance in the early part of the week,
and it was rumored that Rockefeller had gotten hold of the cotton market.
When Theodore H. Price had put the market up about 1% cents. He
thought prices high enough and early in January, 1900, he not only sold
out, but went "short" heavily. For a day or two the market wavered,
but the insufficiency of the crop had in the mean time dawned upon the
trade and prices moved steadily upward. Price saw his mistake and quickly
reversed his position, but a good share of the profits made in the early
part of the campaign was lost. Cotton kept climbing until March, when
9y8 cents was reached. Price was now very bullish, and seemed to
intend a May corner, but was unable to stand the strain of the enormous
quantities of futures and spot cotton thrown at him, principally by the
large Philadelphia house of McFadden. On May 24, 1900, his firm failed
with liabilities of $13,000,000. It was one of the largest commercial failures
in the history of the country and will no doubt always remain unique for
the fact that within three years, through shrewd and conscientious liquida-
tion of the assets, even the unsecured creditors received 80 cents on the
dollar, and were paid in full one year later by Mr. Price, personally and
voluntarily. His prediction as to the course of the market in the summer
of 1900 was fully borne out by the rapid rise that set in soon after his
failure. Where he had left off, two New Orleans operators, W. P. Brown
and Frank Hayne, made a fresh start, but they were content with moderate
profits and no corner was attempted in this country, although supplies fell
to a very low level and many mills had to stop for want of raw material.
In Liverpool, however, there was a full-fledged September corner, prices
rising about 2^/2 pence for the September option in less than ten days. The
bullish excitement was fanned to white heat by the Galveston disaster
and Neill's estimate of a crop of but nine and one-half millions. On
September 13th, the bull speculation reached its climax, but so much cotton
OF THE UNITED STATES 49
was brought to Liverpool from all the other European markets, and even
from mills, that soon afterwards the bulls abandoned the corner.
The crops grown in 1800, lOOO, looi, and 1902 were all moderate ones,
but production and consumption were so evenly balanced that prices
fluctuated little. In 1901 and 1902 Theodore H. Price made several success-
ful turns, and, through the able and lucid exposition of the market position,
statistically and otherwise, in numerous circulars regained his prestige as
the best-posted cotton man. In the fall of 1902 he engineered an enormous
straddle, buying the January option and selling an equal quantity of March
cotton. The commitment on each option was about 750,000 bales. For
some reason or other, the straddle was not successful and was liquidated in
the early part of January, 1903. It is remarkable that the liquidation of
these huge amounts of futures was attended by little or no excitement and
was accomplished before the market became aware of the fact.
A new cotton king now enters on a brief reign. Daniel J. Sully, of
Providence, R. I., had recognized the shortness of the 1902 crop and began
buying heavily early in January, 1903. Through persistent buying he
gradually lifted prices to 11V2 cents in May, when he took his profits and
temporarily withdrew from the market. Brown and Hayne, of New Orleans,
taking up the bull campaign where he left off. They cornered July, August,
and September both in New York and New Orleans. A September corner
in this country is of rare occurrence, as generally there is plenty of new
crop cotton forthcoming, but in 1903 the crop was exceptionally late. In
September. 1903, Sully came back into the market, but met with very
indifferent success at first, in fact, it is said that during the decline follow-
ing the series of corners he lost his entire fortune and had to rely on
assistance from a wealthy friend. This decline was, however, short-lived,
and an early frost cutting down the growing period of the crop to a mini-
mum, it was soon seen that the crop would be even smaller than any of the
three preceding ones. Prices rapidly advanced and soon Sully was again
on his feet and pursued his favorite methods of pushing up the market by
the brute force of buying huge amounts. At the end of January, 1904, the
July option had reached the dizzy height of 17V2 cents, which showed a
rise of more than 8 cents in less than four months. Sully showed good
sense in cleverly unloading on unsuspecting associates and the public, and
when early in February he announced that he was retiring from the
market for a much-needed rest, prices fell sharply 4 cents within a few
days. At one time it looked as thotigh a panic was impending, and Sully's
friends prevailed on him to stay and support the market. A fresh advance
began which carried prices to within i cent of the previous high record.
Here Sully's friends and associates turned the tables on him, selling out
before he had a chance to realize his paper profits. The selling became
universal. Sully found it impossible to stem the tide, after prices had
declined 2 cents in three days, and on March 18, 1904, he declared his
50 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
inability to meet margin calls. The announcement caused a further im-
mediate break of 2 cents, but heavy purchases by the McFaddens and other
shorts steadied the market.
The 1904 crop made an excellent start and as under the stimulus of the
very high prices the cotton acreage had been greatly increased, Theodore
H. Price early recognized the excellent chances for a bear campaign. No
man ever spent as much money on gathering crop information and securing
reliable statistics as this indefatigable operator. He became convinced that
the crop would exceed twelve million bales and might even reach fourteen
million bales, and his enormous short sales netted him a fortune. There
was a steady decline of about 8 cents between Easter and Christmas,
excepting a brief rise in August engineered by Price himself against the
congested short interest. In the spring of 1905 Price turned bull and
again had a very successful campaign. His winnings on July 3, 1905,
were popularly estimated at a million dollars. In August he turned
bearish and conducted a profitable campaign against Dick Brothers, who
had tried to run an October corner. For once Price overstayed the
market and for a time was a heavy loser, as the 1905 crop turned out
to be quite as small as Price had predicted. Still the surplus from the
previous enormous crop proved sufiScient to satisfy all needs, and with tEe
turn of the year a rapid decline set in. By February, 1906, Price had made
good all previous losses and for a time withdrew from the market. In
April, 1906, Price started a May squeeze which was fairly successful, but
he remained bullish in the face of excellent prospects for the new crops.
In August he abandoned his campaign and prices broke sharply.
The brilliant outlook for the 1906 crop was rudely disturbed at the
end of September by one of the fiercest tropical storms that have ever
swept over the cotton belt. Quantitatively, the loss was not so large, but
qualitatively it is hard to estimate. Sufifice it to say that the average quality
of the 1906 crop was the poorest in many years. It is claimed that in the
revision of grades the New York Cotton Exchange did not take sufficient
account of the scarcity of good grades, with the result that the difference
between Liverpool and New York increased from seventy-five points at
the end of October to 200 points in April, 1907. Enormous straddle or
arbitrage operations were carried on between the two markets, and it is
estimated that at one time this straddle interest amounted to close upon
five million bales. The winnings of the successful straddlers, mostly
wealthy spot houses, are in the aggregate estimated at $20,000,000.
The start of the 1907 crop was highly unfavorable and as business in
all branches of trade and industry the world over was on feverish boom lines,
cotton prices rose rapidly. Theodore H. Price, excellently posted as
always, was a heavy winner on the bull side, but as a close student of
economics he foresaw the gathering of the storm and predicted the panic
months ahead. He turned bear in August and again was very successful.
OF THE UNITED STATES 51
as at the end of October the panic caused a sharp break of prices. The
last few months of 1907 saw a remarkable and highly profitable straddle
engineered by a number of prominent New York cotton houses, Craig &
Jenks being the leaders. They bought the December and sold the January
option. In September the December option was ten points below January.
During December that option had advanced to a premium of seventy points
above the following month.
Early in 1908, Sully reappeared for a short while on the speculative
stage, but his success was very moderate. Price also turned bullish on
the market, but the after-panic effects, the closing of prominent New York
banks, and the general apathy following the speculative carnival of the
previous year, all this weighed heavily on the cotton market and carried
prices down about four cents between the middle of January and the end of
April. Price is said to have lost a great deal of money on his deal and has
since then devoted most of his time and attention to the development of a
mechanical cotton picker which seems to have solved the thorny labor
problem in the South. In May, IQ08, Jesse Livermore became active in
the cotton market and worked a July corner. On the futures end of the
deal he made a good deal of money, but lost heavily on the accompanying
spot transactions. He also endeavored to squeeze the August and Septem-
ber options, but was unsuccessful and current gossip credits him with heavy
losses on his cotton speculation. The IQ08 crop was a very large one and
prices declined to eight and a half cents toward the end of the year.
Early in 1909 a new star rose in the speculative firmament. Eugene
Scales of Dallas thought that in view of the deficient winter moisture in
Texas and the steady advance of the boll weevil the next crop would be a
moderate one. It is said that on a diamond ring he raised $400, invested
this in cotton and within ten months turned this into $8,000,000. As Scales
had expected, the 1909 crop turned out to be small, and in his bull operations
he was joined by James A. Patten, the prominent Chicago grain operator,
Colonel Thompson, allied with metal interests and reputed to be many times
a millionaire, the New Orleans veterans. Brown and Hayne, and some
lesser lights. The advance was practically continuous until the end of the
year, when an advance of about seven cents had been recorded. The bulls
had an enthusiastic following and everybody seemed to look for 20 cents
in the near future. Early in 1910 the McFaddens made an eminently
successful raid on this congested long interest, and prices declined almost
3 cents in as many days. For a time the market wavered but toward the
end of February the old bull clique took hold again and with the help
of Southern mills, arranged to take up what spot cotton would be tendered
to them in March, May, July and August. The program was faithfully
adhered to, in spite of the fact that all the bull leaders were indicted by the
Federal Government for violation of the Sherman law. It is an open
secret that on the spot end of the deal the losses were enormous, but much
S2
TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
money was made on manipulation in the futures market. The bull campaign
culminated at the end of August when that option climbed to 20 cents.
There somehow, a hitch occurred, cotton coming out from unexpected
quarters. Angry recriminations followed and so far this feature of the
bull campaign has not been cleared up.
Herewith we conclude our unpretentious sketch of cotton speculation
in America. To an unbiased observer it would appear that whatever has
been the ultimate fate of the individual operator, he fulfilled a useful
function. Without him the course of prices would have been more erratic
and the business of the spinner more uncertain, though this may seem
paradoxical. Beyond any doubt, whenever a prominent speculator is success-
ful, he steadies the market, and if he reads the signs of the market wrong,
he is generally the heaviest loser.
OF THE UNITED STATES S3
THE MANUFACTURE OF COTTON
BY E. M. NORRIS
Of the beginning of the manufacture of cotton we have no record.
We trace it back to the shadowy ages beyond all chronicles, the age of myth
and legend, and there lose trace of it. India was its birthplace, but
Hindoo mythology is uncertain, and does not aid us in determining when
cotton was first spun and woven there. The earliest mention of it is
found in the religious books of the Hindoos, in the Rig Veda, Hymn 105,
verse eight, written 1500 years before Christ, in which there is an allusion
to "threads in the loom;" and in "The Sacred Institutes of Manu" (800
B. C), cotton and cotton cloth are repeatedly referred to under the Sanscrit
names "Kurpasa" and "Kurpasum," and cotton seeds as "Kurpas-asthi."
Kupas, the common Bengali name for the cotton with the seed, used all over
India and occasionally heard in Lancashire, is probably derived from the
Sanscrit, according to J. Forbes Royle.
Herodotus, writing of the Hindoos, 400 B. C, says: "They f)ossess a
Icind of plant which instead of fruit, produces wool of a finer and better qual-
ity than that of sheep, and of this the Indians make their clothes." Nearchus,
Admiral of Alexander the Great, records the fact that the Indians wore
linen garments, the substance whereof they were made growing upon
trees ; and "this is indeed flax, or rather something much whiter and
finer than fiax." He also gives the Indian name for cotton as tala.
Evidently, the manufacture of cotton in India dates from a very antique
period, for it had attained a high degree of excellence long before the
time of which Herodotus wrote, and a large export trade in white and colored
cotton fabrics had already been established. Strabo, noted for his accuracy,
mentions on the authority of Nearchus, the flowered cottons of India, and
celebrates the numerous beautiful dyes with which they were colored. They
attained almost incredible perfection in their fabrics, and that with the
rudest and simplest of implements. The cotton, being ginned by the
churka, a wooden mill, made for that purpose (see Plate 2) and
bowed, was spun by the women. A heavy one-thread wheel of teakwood,
of the rudest make, was used for spinning the coarse yarn ; while
the finer threads were spun with the spindle, with or without the distaff.
The yarn thus prepared was given to the weaver, whose loom consisted
"merely of two bamboo rollers, one for the warp and the other for the web.
54 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
and a pair of geer. The shuttle performs the double office of shuttle and
batten, and for this purpose is made like a large knitting needle, and of
a length somewhat exceeding the breadth of the piece (this was not
always so; sometimes, the shuttle was short and was thrown). This ap-
paratus, the weaver carries to a tree, under which he digs a hole large
enough to contain his legs and the lower part of the geer. He then
stretches his warp by fastening his bamboo rollers at a due distance from
each other on the turf by wooden pins. The balance of the geer he
fastens to some convenient branch of the tree over his head ; two loops
underneath the geer, in which he inserts his great toes, serve instead of
treadles ; and his long shuttle, which also performs the office of batten,
draws the weft through the warp, and afterwards strikes it up close
to the web." With such simple apparatus as this did the Indian weaver
manufacture "webs of woven wind," as Dacca muslins were called in
the Oriental hyperbole. "Some calicuts," writes Tavernier, "are made
so fine, you can hardly feel them in your hand." He further says of the
turbans worn by the Mohammedan Indians, — "The rich have them of so
fine cloth, that twenty-five or thirty ells of it put into a turban will not
weigh four ounces." Another writer says, — "When this muslin is laid on
the grass, and the dew has fallen upon it, it is no longer discernible."
India remained in advance of Europe in the industry far into the eigh-
teenth century. Though largely imported into England, the Indian cotton
goods were' regarded with great disfavor by the home manufacturer, though
they brought large profits to the merchants. Daniel DeFoe, in his "Weekly
Review" in 1708, says, in regard to the preference exhibited by the people
for Indian chintz, calico, etc., — "It crept," he says, "into our houses, our
closets, our best chambers! curtains, cushions, chairs, and at last beds
themselves were nothing but calicoes and Indian stufifs, and in short, almost
everything that used to be made of wool or silk, relating either to the
dress of the women or the furniture of our houses, was supplied by the
Indian trade. The several goods brought from India are made five parts
in six under our price, and being imported and sold at an extravagant
advantage, are yet capable of underselling the cheapest thing we can set
about." We shall see later on how unfounded were his fears.
From India, cotton goods were early introduced into Persia, and a
reference to them occurs in the book of Esther (Chap, i, v. 6) in the
description of the decorations of the palace of Shushan for festivities
given by King Ahasuerus, B. C. 519, which mentions that there were white,
green and blue hangings, the word translated green being in the Hebrew,
Karpas, and should be rendered cotton-cloth, so that the hangings were
of white and blue striped cotton. (We are indebted to the work of Mr.
H. Lee for this explanation, and he is also authority for the assertion
that cotton was known in Egypt as early as 550 B.C.). Alpino, the
Paduan physician and botanist, f 1553- 1607) records that the Egyptians im-
OF THh, UNITED STaTEs SS
ported cotton at that date, that gossypium herbaceous did not grow there,
but that gossypium arboreum was cultivated in private gardens as an
ornamental plant, and the down was not used for spinning. The Greeks
were acquainted with muslins and calicoes brought from Egypt two hundred
years before Christ. A little later, 63 B. C, P. Lentulus Spinther, the
Roman redile, introduced cotton in the Apollinarian games, and Csesar
the Dictator covered with awnings the whole Roman Forum and the
Sacred Way from his own house to the Capitoline Hill.
In the seventh century, cotton was freely cultivated and manufactured
in Arabia and Syria, but not until the tenth century was it grown for
manufacturing in China. The Moors introduced it into Spain (712 A. D.)
but when the Moorish domination of Spain was crushed in 1492, the manu-
factures fostered by them were discarded ; yet the cotton plant is still found
growing wild in that country. Under the influence of the Moors, cotton
was cultivated in Greece, Italy, Sicily and Malta, but when they were
expelled from Europe, it departed for a time also. The art first revived
in Italy. In the fourteenth century, the fustians and dimities of Venice
and Milan were much esteemed in Northern Europe. Next, it was es-
tablished in Saxony and Suabia, and found its way into the Netherlands,
and fustians were largely manufactured in Prussia and Germany. Two
events made the fifteenth century a crucial epoch in the history of the
cotton trade — the discovery of America by Columbus, and the discovery
of the passage to India round the Cape of Good Hope by Vasca da Gama.
Sailing westward in quest of a nearer route to India, Christopher
Columbus reaching one of the Bahamas thirty days after leaving Spain,
the natives in canoes surrounded his ship, offering for barter cotton yarn
and thread in skeins.
In Cuba, he saw the women clothed in cotton garments, and noticed
the hamacus (hammocks) of strong cotton cord. Oviedo, the Spanish
historian and chronicler of the Indies (1478-1557), gives the same account
of Hayti, and at the discovery of Guadaloupe in the same year, cotton
thread in skeins was found everywhere and looms with which to weave it ;
in all of these places, the idols were made of cotton. This manufacture
had evidently been handed down from a far distant time.
The "new world" is after all as old as the rest of the globe and was
apparently as early populated. In Mexico, and in Central America, are
found indubitable proofs of the greatness and the culture of former
dwellers in the land. Pyramids, vast as those of Egypt, huge reservoirs,
aqueducts, and the ruins of temples and palaces record the fact that a
powerful and wealthy nation, skilled in all the important arts of civilization,
once existed. But these are their only records ; we know nothing of their
history.
In Peru, Pizarro and his soldiers in 1532 found evidences of the
same antiquity. Humboldt describes the great road from Quito to Cuzco,
56 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
built by the ancient Peruvians, and macadamized with broken stone mixed
with lime and asphalte as "Marvellous." Tombs, temples and palaces
arise on every hand. They have lain in ruins for centuries, but are still
traceable. They were the works of men who lived thousands of years ago,
and amongst their manufactures was that of cotton. There are in the
British Museum some mummy cloths woven of cotton, the "fibres of which
under the microscope are very tortuous, and resemble those of Gossypium
hirsutum." It would seem therefore that the cultivation and manufacture
of cotton in the New World was very likely coeval with the similar use of
it in India. The dress of the Incas or sovereigns of Peru was composed
of cotton of many colors spun and woven by the "Virgins of the Sun."
When Cortez conquered Mexico in 15 19, Mexicans had no textile fabrics
except those made from cotton, nor had they flax, or silk, or wool. Cortez,
fired with enthusiasm at the beauty of the hangings and garments presented
to him by the natives of Yucatan, sent home to his emperor, it is recorded,
"counterpanes," "under-waistcoats," "carpets," and "handkerchiefs."
Particularly are noted a variety of mantles, some of which were chequered
and figured in various colors, the outer side of the garment bearing long
nap, like a shaggy cloth. Obiardo Barbosa, of Lisbon, visited South Africa
in 1 5 16, and found the natives wearing cotton, and as early as 1590 cotton
was imported into London from the Bight of Benim.
In England no cotton was woven at this period, the small quantity
used for candlewicks, etc., being brought either from Italy or the Levant.
In 1560, however, England imported a small quantity of cotton and seemed
desirous of competing in its manufacture: in 1585, a fresh impetus was
given to this ambition by the advent of Flemish refugees, who sought in
England a refuge from the cruel religious persecutions to which they had
been subjected in the Netherlands.
In a poem entitled "The Processe of the Libel of English Policie,"
published in 1430, mention is made of cotton. Hakluyt mentions "cottoft-
wool" as being brought "in tall ships of London" from Cyprus and
other ports in the Levant. Cotton was imported from Antwerp, also, in
1560. In the "Treasures of Traffic," which was published in 1641, the
author, Lewes Roberts, says of the Manchester manufacturers, — "They buy
cotton wool in London that comes first from Cyprus and Smyrna, and at
home work the same, and perfect it into fustians, vermilions, dimities, and
such other stufifs, and then return it to London." In Fuller's "Worthies of
England," mention is made of Humphrey Chetham, the celebrated founder
of the Blue Coat Hospital and Library at Manchester, as being engaged
in the manufacture of cottons, especially of fustians "then in almost gen-
eral use throughout the nation." so that fustians must have been made in
Manchester long before the publication of Lewes Roberts' book. Calico
printing was begun in England in the latter part of the seventeenth cen-
tury. In the "Daily Advertiser," of September 5, 1739, was published an
OF THE UNITED STATES 57
article which says: "The manufacture of cotton, mixed and plain, is
arrived at so great perfection within these twenty years, that we not
only make enough for our own consumption, but supply our colonies and
many of the nations of Europe." Sir Edward Baines' "History of Cotton
Manufacture" furnishes the following table of imports of cotton into
England in the infancy of the cotton manufacture, and shows how trifling
was the vaunted prosperity of the cotton trade, as compared with the
operations of to-day.
Quantity of Cotton Wool Imported into England.
Year. Pounds.
1697 1,976,359
1701 1,985
1710 715
1720 1,972,805
1730 1,545.472
1741 1,645,031
1751 2,976,610
1764 3,870,392
As Great Britain was the latest among the nations to adopt the
manufacture of cotton, in which she has long led the world, so the United
States was the last to enter the list of the cotton-growing nations of which
she has long been the foremost. (See Roper: History of Cotton Production
in the United States, Ibid.)
In 1738, began the marvellous inventions which have had so large a
share in contributing to the commercial prosperity of the manufactures of
both England and America.
In that year. John Kay, a native of Bury in Lancashire, invented the fly
shuttle and introduced it to the woollen trade; but it did not come into
general use in the cotton trade until 1760, in which year Robert, son of
John Kay, invented the "drop box." The next invention to be recorded
was of stupendous importance, and practically revolutionized all former
methods in the fabrication of textiles. In England, the gravest impediment
in the manufacture of cotton had long been the impossibility of obtaining
yarn in sufficient quantities to keep the looms of the weaver busy. TKe
spinning at that time was all done by women in the homes, by means of a
hand-wheel, fashioned after the old Indian wheel, which had been intro-
duced into Europe early in the sixteenth century. Spinning by this one-
thread wheel was a tediously slow process, and though wheels were turning
from morning to night in thousands of cottages, they could not keep
pace with the demand. The cotton was converted into yarn by two
processes, roving and spinning. The spinner took the short, fleecy rolls, as
5& TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
they came from the hand cards and applied them successively to the
spindle. With one hand she caused the spindle to revolve ; with the other,
she drew out the cardings, which, receiving a slight twist from the spindle,
were converted into thick threads, called rovings, and wound upon the
spindles so as to form caps. In the next process, the roving was spun
into yarn, the operation being similar, but the thread was drawn out finer
and received much more twist. So slow an operation was necessarily an
expensive one; and was a grave obstacle in the establishment of the new
manufacture. The spinners' and the weavers' minds were full of it, and
there were many fruitless experiments, no doubt, before the solution of
the difficulty was obtained and a machine was invented by means of which
twenty, fifty, a hundred, or even a thousand threads could be spun at one
and the same time by a single pair of hands. This was prior to Sir Richard
Arkwright's patent, and was the invention of one Lewis Paul, of Birming-
ham, whose roller machine for spinning was patented in 1738. Claims
were later made by the sons of his partner, John Wyatt. (See sketches of
Paul and Wyatt, Vol. II. of this work.) Sir Edward Baines, in his valuable
work, the "History of Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain," gives the full
text of the Letters Patent, and that document proves beyond a doubt that
the mode of spinning by rollers was invented fully thirty years before
Arkwright took out his patent for a similar machine. The "spinning
engine," as it was called, was set up in 1741, in a large warehouse, near
the well in Upper Priory, Birmingham. It was propelled by two or more
asses, walking round an axis. Another manufactory was established at
Northampton, which was moved by a water wheel ; the machines consisting
of several frames, bearing 250 spindles and bobbins. The ultimate failure
of these enterprises was largely due to want of experience in the owners ;
but for which the quickening of the cotton industry would have been
accelerated by thirty years.
In 1748, the process of carding, which hitherto had been effected
by stock cards was facilitated by the invention of rotary cards, for which
in that year Mr. Lewis Paul, the patentee of Wyatt's Spinning Machine,
took out a patent. In 1758, he took out a patent for the spinning machine,
an improved type of the model of 1738.
One of the very early improvements made in the carding machine was
a feeder in 1772 by John Lees. Of the crank and comb, Hargreaves was
the original inventor, though this contrivance was embodied in Arkwright's
carding machine.
About the year 1764, a poor weaver named James Hargreaves, who was
employed in a cotton mill in Lancashire, first made a machine in that
county which spun eleven threads. It is said he discovered the principle
of his machine by the accidental overturning of a spinning wheel. At
first he kept the machine secret, and his family spun weft from it for his
own weaving. The secret was, however, discovered and a mob broke
OF THE UNITED STATES S9
into his house and destroyed the jenny and most of the furniture, and he
himself was so persecuted that he was obhged to fly the country. He
retired to Birmingham in 1768, where he entered into partnership with
Thomas James, and they built a small mill. In 1770, Hargreaves obtained
a patent for the jenny, but before leaving Lancashire he had built a few
of the jennies for sale and its importance being recognized by manufacturers
and weavers alike, it was brought into gefieral use. So confirmed, however,
were the prejudices of the spinners, that "a mob arose and, scouring the
country for several miles around I'lackburn, demolished the jennies, the
carding engines, the water frames and every machine turned by water or
horses."
One Thomas Highs, a reedmaker of Leeds, in 1769 invented a water
frame, which it was claimed later was the prototype and model of later
machines, and it is claimed he also invented a spinning-wheel, which
antedated that of Hargreaves.
In 1768, Richard Arkwright, having completed a model of the
"spinning engine" and being devoid of means to carry out his invention
to a practical issue, repaired to his native Preston, and applied to a friend
for assistance. This friend, Mr. John Smalley, entered into partnership
with him, and fearing that the riots which took place in Blackburn on the
invention of the spinning jenny would be repeated, Mr. Arkwright, ac-
companied by Mr. Smalley, went to Nottingham, and there was introduced to
Mr. Samuel Nud of that city, who was in partnership with Mr. Jedediah
Strutt of Derby, that patentee of the stocking frame to whom, we must
not forget, Samuel Slater, of Rhode Island, was apprenticed.
The roller-spinning frame was now patented (1769) and was greatly
improved later by Arkwright, who like all the early inventors of machinery,
encountered the animosity of his fellow-manufacturers in various ways,
though he was the most successful of his class. He and his partners, Nud
and Strutt, erected a mill at Nottingham, which was driven by horses ; but
this power proving too expensive, a much larger mill was built by them
at Cromford in Derbyshire, the motive power being furnished by a water
wheel, and from this circumstance the spinning machine was called a
water frame.
Before these two important inventions of the spinning jenny and the
water-frame, the chief obstructions and impediments of the cotton manu-
facture vanished. The machines not only spun more yarn, but they spun
better yarn. The new water-frame produced a hard, firm thread, adapted
for warp; therefore linen warp, which had been everywhere used, was
abandoned, and goods were for the first time woven entirely of cotton. On
the other hand, the jenny was peculiarly adapted for spinning weft, so
that the two machines did not conflict, but were brought into use together,
and finer and more delicate fabrics were introduced, especially calicoes
imitated from the Indian article of that name. The spirit of invention
6o TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
was now aroused into marked activity, and much experimentation evolved
various improving devices in the new machines. But the opposition en-
countered by the machines, owing to the ignorance and prejudice of the
workmen, caused the impetus imparted to the trade by the new machine to
be followed by a lull, and the imports of cotton into Great Britain did not
exceed 4,764,589 pounds a year up to 1775.
On the i6th of December, 1775, Mr. Arkwright was granted another
patent for a series of machines, which comprised the carding, roving, and
drawing machines, all used "in preparing silk, cotton, flax and wool for
spinning." Yarns were now produced far superior in quality to any before
made, as well as lower in price, and a mighty impetus was given to the
cotton manufacture. Weavers could obtain an unlimited quantity of yarn
at a reasonable price, and cotton fabrics could be sold lower than ever
before; the price of the manufacture being still further lowered by the
use of cotton warps in place of linen. The demand for them consequently
increased, and numerous spinning mills were built to supply the requisite
amount of yarn. Arkwright's fame filled the land and capitalists flocked
to buy his machines. He and his partners spent upwards of £30,000 on
their buildings in Derbyshire, and he also built a very large and costly mill
in Manchester, and a business was formed which employed upwards of
5,000 persons, with a capital, on the whole, of not less than £200,000.
The factory system in England took its rise from this period. Up to
this time, the manipulation of cotton had been effected almost entirely
in the houses of the workmen; the hand or stock cards, the spinning-wheel
and the loom requiring no more floor space than could be afforded in a
cottage. A spinning jenny of small size also could be, and often was, used
in the same way ; but the water-frame, carding engine, and other machines
now brought out by Arkwright in a finished state, required not only a certain
amount of floor space, but their weight necessitated that they should be
placed in strong buildings, and they required the strongest impelling force
then known; namely, that of water.
The machinery called for a further division of labor than was requisite
in the primitive state of the manufacture ; it was found expedient to utilize
the power obtained from each water-wheel by carrying on the numerous
operations of an extensive manufacture in one building; these and other
considerations led to the introduction of the factory system, and mills were
erected at many points where water power was accessible.
Arkwright was making a large fortune, not only by his patents, but
by the various manufacturing enterprises in which he had a share, when
several persons, believing that he was not really the author of the inven-
tions by which he was profiting, ventured to set up similar machines without
leave or license from him. He therefore in 1781 instituted nine actions
for infringement, one only of which came to trial, that against Colonel
Mordaunt. This action was for the infringement of the second patent for
OF THE UNITED STATES 6i
the carding, drawing, and roving machines, and the patent was set aside.
He made an effort to regain this second patent with the result that his
claims to priority of invention were disallowed and the patent was annulled
in 1785, the patent for the spinning machines having expired in 1783, and
the surprising amplification of the manufacture which almost immediately
followed, proved that the nullification of this patent was of the utmost
national advantage.
Arkwright undoubtedly possessed inventive talent of a very high order,
but the splendid achievements in the line of invention attributed to him,
even to the present day, belonged in great part to others less successful
than he; in appropriating them as his own, he "acted dishonorably and left
a stain upon his character which the acknowledged brilliance of his talents
cannot efface." (See Sir Edward Baines' "History of the Cotton Manufac-
ture.")
During the years 1774 to 1779, Samuel Crompton was busy inventing
the spinning mule, which superseded the spinning jenny and to some extent
the water-frame also. No patent was taken out by the author of this
admirable machine, it became public property, and while many were en-
riched by it he remained a poor man, his only reward being $5,000, awarded
him by act of Parliament in 1812.
The first self-acting mule was invented .somewhere between 1780 and
1790 by Mr. William Strutt, of Derby, son of Mr. Jedediah Strutt, but for
some reasons it did not come into successful operation. Mr. Kelley, i»
1792, made a self-acting mule. Later on, several mechanics in England,
Scotland, France and America, invented devices to render mules self-acting,
none of which were absolutely successful. But in 1825, Mr. Roberts of the
firm of Sharp, Roberts & Co., machinists, Manchester, invented a self-acting
mule for which a patent was granted, a second one for an improved
machine being granted in 1830. This last mule approached very near
perfection and came rapidly into use.
Such wa'^ the efficiency of the mule that at first it seemed probable that
the water-frame, like the jenny, would fall into disuse ; but a little later on,
when the power-loom came into being, it was particularly desirable to
have twist for warps of the wiry smoothness which the water-frame pro-
duces, and the improvements which were effected in that machine enabled the
manufacturers to sell the low counts of water-twist yarn cheaper than the
mule-twist. The improved machine was called a throstle; and the im-
provement lay chiefly in the simplification of the gearing. Further
improvements, which largely increased the velocity of the machine, were
made by American machinists in later years. About the year 181 7, the
fly-frame came into being, and this was followed by the tube-frame ; Mr.
Henry Houldsworth was the patentee of the former in 1825, the tube
frame being invented in America and patented in England by Mr. Dyer,
of Manchester, in 1825.
62 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
We have followed the gradual evolution of spinning machinery to
the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and must now retrace our steps
in order that we may contemplate the further extension of its usefulness
by the adoption of one of the most mighty impelling forces known to man, —
Steam. Had not this discovery been made, the building of mills in
Lancashire, the birthplace of the cotton industry, must have ceased when
all the available water-power had been utilized.
The honor of first applying steam as a mechanical power has generally
been ascribed to the Marquis of Worcester ; but that ingenious and eccentric
nobleman's recognition of the immense power of steam was anticipated
nearly fortv years before the publication of his work, the "Century of
Inventions," in 1663, in which he describes his experiments and their results.
As early as 1615, Solomon de Cans, engineer to Louis XIH, in a book
published in that year propounded the raising of water by steam as a
philosophical principle. In 1630, a patent was granted by Charles I, to
David Ramsaye, a groom of the privy chamber, for nine articles of inven-
tion, of which two appear to indicate the original of the steam-engine;
namely, "To raise water from low pits by fire," and "to raise water from
low places, and mynes, and coal pits by a new way never yet in use." But
it was not until July 25, 1698, that a patent was granted to Captain Savery,
of Cornwall, for a steam-engine, which was considered so important that
an act of Parliament was passed, "for the encouragement of a new
invention by Thomas Savery, for raising water, and occasioning motion
to all sorts of mill work, by the impellant force of fire." Before he obtained
his patent, Savery had erected sundry steam-engines to pump water out of
Cornish mines, and had published a description of his engine in a work
entitled "The Miner's Friend," in 1696. This engine was extremely
defective from the fact that it caused an immense waste of both steam and
fuel, and was so limited in its capabilities that it could only be used in
certain situations. Thomas Newcomen effected a considerable improvement
in it, and he and Savery obtained a joint patent for the new engine in 1705.
Mr. Brighton, in 1717, simplified the movements of the machine without
altering its principles; and from that time until 1769, little change was
made in it. And now came James Watt, a native of Greenock, who had
qualified as a maker of philosophical instruments in London and Glasgow,
and who settled in the latter city in 1757. He was appointed an instrument
maker to the LTniversity and there became acquainted with Dr. Black, who
about that time published his important discovery of latent heat. His
study of this doctrine led Watt to make the prodigious waste of heat in
the steam-engine the subject of his serious contemplation. In 1763, he
was called in to repair a small working model of Newcomen's steam-engine.
Its defects were apparent to him and he at once set about to repair them,
for he perceived the prodigious c-apabilities of steam, if it could only he
properly applied. After years of patient labor, experiments so costly that
OF THE UNITED STATES 63
his means were almost exhausted, he succeeded in developing the steam-
engine into the most valuable instrument for the application of power that
the world has ever known. It is worthy of note that his patent for "lessening
the consumption of steam and fuel in fire engines," should have been taken
out in the same year as that of Arkwright for spinning with rollers, namely,
1769. This first patent did not include all Watt's improvements in the
steam-engine; in 1775, he entered into business with a Mr. Boulton, an
enterprising man of wealth who had. great mechanical talent, and having
made further improvements in the steam-engine, Parliament in that year
passed an act vesting in Mr. Watt "the sole use and property of certain
steam-engines (or fire engines) of his invention, throughout His Majesty's
dominions," for the term of twenty-five years. He took out three later
patents in 1781, 1782, 1784, for further improvements.
The first steam-engine made for a cotton mill, by Boulton and Watt,
was set up in the factory of Messrs. Robinson, at Papplewick, Nottingham-
shire, in the year 17S5. Messrs. Arkwright and Simpson had put up an
atmospheric engine in their cotton mill at Shude Hill, Manchester, in
1783; but not until 1789 was the first steam-engine used in that town for
cotton spinning built for Mr. Drinkwater by Boulton & Watt ; Sir Richard
Arkwright first a<lopted the new invention in a cotton mill in Nottingham,
in 1790. In Glasgow, the first engine for cotton spinning was set up for
Messrs. Scott and Stevenson, in 1792. The spinning machinery had created
the cotton industry ; the steam-engine fostered it and extended it far
beyond the limits it could have attained had it been restricted to the
motive power attainable before the birth of steam-power.
But the inventive genius of those who sought to advance the cotton
manufacture was not exhausted by these splendid efiforts, and we must next
note the improvements brought about in the loom itself and in the methods
by which its operations were conducted. In 1695, a loom moved by water
power, was made by M. de Gennes, which is described in the Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society for 1678, as "a new engine to make linen
cloth without the help of an artificer," but it did not come into use.
Prior to 1765, a swivel loom was invented by Vaucanson, and in 1765, a
weaving factory was built by Mr. Gartsi,de, probably fitted with those
looms ; but no real advance was made, as each loom required a man to
work it. In 1765, the Rev. Dr. Edmund Cartwright, of Kent, invented
a power loom and attempted to manufacture with it; but in this he was
unsuccessful. He spent a large fortune, which he had inherited from his
father, in his efforts to make practical use of his loom and certain carding
machines which he had invented, and his circumstances became precarious.
At this juncture. Parliament, in 1809, came to his assistance with a grant
of £10,000 as a reward for his ingenuity.
About 1790, Messrs. Grimshaw, of Gorton, under a license from
Cartwright, built a weaving room at Knott's Mills, Manchester, and at
64 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
great cost to themselves, endeavored to improve the power loom. Their
effort was so far unsuccessful that on the burning of the factory, they
abandoned the enterprise.
In 1794, a power loom was invented by Mr. Bell, of Glasgow, which
was unsuccessful. Mr. Robert Miller, of Glasgow, in 1790, took out a
patent for a machine of the same order, and Mr. Monteith, of Pollokshaws,
Glasgow, fitted up a mill with 200 of these loom.s, but it was some years
before the business proved successful.
The chief difficulty in the effective working of the power loom was
at last solved by the patenting in 1803, of a dressing machine, by Thomas
Johnson, who, working under the direction and encouragement of his
employers, Messrs. Radcliffe and Ross, of Stockport, produced this essential
accessory and made the use of the power loom possible. In that same
year, Mr. H. Horrocks, of Stockport, took out a patent for a new power
loom, upon which he obtained further patents for improvements in 1805
and 1813. Mr. Peter Marsland, of Stockport, obtained a patent in 1806,
for a power loom with a double crank, which failed of adoption, although
it produced very superior cloth. Horrocks' loom is the one which came
into general use, being a neat, compact, simple machine, very rapid in
motion. The power loom and the dressing machine came very slowly into
favor. In 1813 there were but 2400 of the former and one hundred of the
latter in use, yet this was sufficient to awaken the alarm of the hand-loom
weavers, who broke the power looms set up at West Houghton, Middle-
town, and other places. But its great value in course of time was fully
proven, and' in 1829 there were 45,500 power looms in full activity in
England, and 10,000 in Scotland, this being regarded as a conservative
estimate.
We must note another series of inventions which have multiplied the
efficiency of the ones already recorded a hundredfold. These are directed
to the preparatory processes by which cotton is made ready for spinning,
and to the final and finishing processes after it has left the loom. Snod-
grass, of Glasgow, in 1800, invented the scutching machine, and in 1814
the lap machine was introduced by John Crighton, of Manchester, in
almost the same form in which it exists today, and its inventor also
effected vast improvements in the methods of opening and scutching. The
invention and gradual evolution of the carding machine cover nearly the
whole of the nineteenth century, the first important improvement being
effected in 1823, and the principle of the revolving flat card was devised
in 1834, but lay dormant for over thirty years, when it was taken in hand
and developed in 1857, its usefulness being further extended in 1880 by
the Messrs. Ashworth, and it became practically the carding machine of
to-day. The combing machine was first exhibited by its, inventor, Mr.
Josue Heilmann, of Mulhouse, at the Paris Exposition of 1851. Mule
and frame spinning have been much simplified by various devices and
OF THE UNITED STATES 65
improvements, the first change being made in the Crompton mule 6y
Richard Roberts, who converted it into an automatic machine in 1835. The
development in frame spinning has been far greater than that in mule
spinning; improvement followed improvement until the Rabbeth spindle
reached what seems to be the practical limit of speed.
In the loom much has been done in the past decade ; the principal
difficulty, loss of time in the changing of the shuttles, having been effectively
removed by the invention of the Northrop loom which has two most
important improvements, the first of which wholly prevents loss of time
by stoppage for shuttle changing, and the second, causes the instantaneous
stopping of the loom if a single warp thread breaks.
Having followed the great fundamental inventions of machinery for
cotton manufacture step by step, we can only cursorily mention the fact
that improvements and new applications of those fundamental principles
have been made by inventors all over the world, but mainly in England and
America, during the century and a half that has followed. In the manufac-
ture of textiles from cotton. Great Britain now leads, Lancashire being
the greatest cotton manufacturing centre in the world. There were in
the United Kingdom, in 1905, over 53,000,000 cotton spindles in active
operation. Cotton manufacturing under the factory system, made possible
by the inventions of Wyatt, Kay, Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, and
Cartwright, had its inception in the county of Lancashire. The industry is
concentrated within a radius of thirty miles around Manchester, the rest
of the county being mainly agricultural and mining; coal and iron beiiig
two of the products which have rendered the locality so peculiarly suited
for a manufacturing centre. At the beginning of the year 1906, there
were operating in Lancashire 48,322,684 cotton spindles and 684,811 looms.
Of this number, 2,430,367 spindles and 32,371 looms were put into new
mills in the preceding year; later in 1906, ninety new mills were put into
operation, organized, under construction, or projected, to contain 8,026,356
spindles, 5.937,356 of which consume American cotton, the remainder will
spin Egyptian. One mill, The Mammoth, has 250,000 spindles. The ex-
tension of this gigantic industry goes on by leaps and bounds, and
Lancashire has added 10,000,000 spindles to her productive capacity within
a few years. During 1906, Great Britain increased her total exports of
manufactured cotton, $36,600,000.
During the years 1909-1910. the too rapid increase of mills and the
short cotton crops in Egypt and America during the former year somewhat
diminished the prosperity of the cotton manufacturing industry of the
Kingdom. For 1910 the number of spindles in active operation was 53,-
397,000.
As we contemplate the splendid achievements of the early inventors
of cotton machinery, and their effect upon the manufacturing industry in
England, we can realize that those of her sons who left her shores to
66 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
venture in the New Wono., were not inactive in the new industry that opened
such a promising market for their raw material in the way of cotton.
Spinning and weaving were of course practised in the New World by the
earliest colonists; but they were home industries, the women spinning the
yarn from which they wove cloth for their households, at first of wool or
flax, but later of the cotton which grew so abundantly to their hand in
the warmer latitudes of their new country. About 1786 came others
who had knowledge of the new carding, spinning and roving machines,
but as an embargo was placed upon the exportation of machinery or of
models or drawings of it, they necessarily had to depend upon their
memories, which usually proved defective in some vital point, so that
while copies of the English machines were built at various points by
different persons, few of them were of any practical value. Some ex-
ceptions there were, such as the jenny, built after the model of Hargreaves,
by Christopher Tully, in 1775, which was placed in a building at the
corner of North and Market streets, Philadelphia, and operated by the
"United Company of Philadelphia for Promoting American Manufactures."
In 1786. Robert and Alexander Barr, of Scotland, came to East Bridgewater,
and built machines for carding, roving and spinning, and the General
Court grcmted them £200 bounty. Another model was made in 1787 by
Thomas Somers, an Englishman, who received twenty pounds bounty ; these
machines were all made for Mr. Orr, of Bridgewater, and remained in his
possession that all might examine them, but there is no record of their
practical use. In 1788, a small mill was built at Beverly, Mass., in which
a spinning jenny, made after a model furnished by Somers, was operated
by horse-power. About the year 1788, Daniel Anthony, Andrew Dexter,
and Lewis Peck, of Providence, entered into partnership for the purpose
of engaging in the manufacture of cotton, and went to Bridgewater to
examine the model brought by Orr from England ; finding it imperfect,
they laid their drawings aside for a time, and built a jenny after the one
at Beverly, the model for which had been furnished by either Leonard or
Somers. This jenny had twenty-eight spindles, and was finished in 1787,
and was operated in the market-house chamber in Providence, ancT Joshua
Lindly, of Providence, constructed a carding machine from the model at Bev-
erly. They then proceeded to build a spinning-frame from the model at
Bridgewater ; it was operated by a crank turned by hand, ana was very im-
perfect. Later came Joseph Alexander (1788), a weaver from Scotland, and
a loom was built under his direction and set in motion in the market-house
chamber ; this was the first fly-shuttle ever used in Rhode Island. The spin-
ning frame, (Mr. Orr's), after being tried for some time in Providence was
carried to Pawtucket, and attached to a wheel propelled by water, but it was
too imperfect to be used. Shortly after it was sold to Moses Brown, of
Providence, as was also a stocking loom brought to East Greenwich by John
Fullem, a native of Ireland. An attempt had been made to run this ma-
OF THE UNITED STATES 67
chinery, by William Almy and Smith Brown, the capital being ftirnished by
Moses Brown, but it was unsuccessful.
At this juncture, in a moment auspicious for his own fortunes, and for
the country to which he took his way, a young man named Slater left his
natal place, Belper, in Derbyshire, England, and came to New York. It
must be remembered that at that period an embargo was laid upon the
exportation of English machinery, while a bounty was given for the
exportation of manufactured cotton goods. Manufacturers in the United
States were dependent, therefore, if they wished to use the new machines
then lately invented in the mother country, upon the memories of those who
came to her shores, for their reproduction. Samuel Slater brought much
valuable knowledge, especially of the master machine, the water- frame of
Arkwright. He had served a strenuous apprenticeship under Jedediah Strutt,
the former partner of Arkwright, and therefore was thoroughly conversant
with the machines in all their details, and he was himself possessed of
much mechanical genius, and imbued with the patience, perseverance and
industry necessary in .^iuch an enterprise. He obtained employment in
New York City, but finding no scope for his ability, he wrote to Moses
Brown of Providence, of whose experiments he had heard, and offered His
services as manager of spinning. They were accepted, and he went to
Providence and found the machines worthless. An agreement was made
whereby he entered into partnership with Ahny & Brown, and then set
to work to make a series of machines after the Arkwright pattern, whicli
he successfully accomplished after much labor, and so set in motion the
first of the series of great factories which to-day constitute the cotton
industry of Providence.
After 1790, power looms were introduced, and it seemed as though the
only obstacle to an unlimited extension of the cotton industry would be the
impossibility of procuring sufficient raw material, when, in 1793, the
invention of the saw gin made it possible to clear the fibre of seed rapidly,
and flooded the market with cotton, to the great relief of planters and
manufacturers alike, and gave added impetus to the impulse of the new
and rapid machinery, not only in Rhode Island, but in the States of New
York, New Jersey. New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont and even
to some slight extent in the South. The first cotton mill in New Jersey
was built in 1794 at Paterson ; New Ipswich, N. H., 1804; Union Village,
N. Y., 1804; Pomfret, Conn., 1806; Brunswick, Me., 1807; North Benning-
ton, Vt., 181 1 ; a second mill at Fall River in 1812; in 1815, the power loom
in connection with power spinning was introduced by Francis C. Lowell,
at Waltham, Mass., that being the first cotton factory to carry on in one
establishment all the processes involved in the manufacture of the finished
product from the raw material. The progress of the business of cotton
manufacturing was thereafter continuous in the Northern States; in the
South there has been more fluctuation, mills were built in Wilmington, Del.,
68 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
in 1795; James Island, S. C, 1797; in 1809, there were six small horse-
power mills; in Petersburg, Va., there was one; and in Nashville, Tenn.,
one; the Bolton factory was built at Upton Creek, Ga., in 181 1; a mill
near Lincolnton, N. C, 1815; Covington, Ky., 1828; FHnt River, Ala.,
1832; New Orleans, La., 1838; Natchez, Miss., 1844; Cave Hill, Ark., and
at Huntsville, Texas, in i860. Slave labor, however, was not adapted to
the factory, and the Civil War completely stultified the industry: in the
period of rehabilitation which followed, it dawned upon the intelligence
of the planters that the manufacturing, as well as the growing of cotton,
would ensure the prosperity of the Cotton Belt and the contiguous States,
and the spindle and loom have found an abiding place beside the cotton
gin in the cotton plantations of the South. At first, the mills were gradually
refitted with the latest improved machinery. A great proportion of the
mills built in the past decade are quite equal to those at the North ; in
fact, many improvements are there found which do not exist in the North.
The first factory operated solely by electricity, without shafting or belts,
was located at the South. The growth of the industry in the Southern
States was fairly continuous during the last ten years of the nineteenth
century. Both North Carolina and South Carolina, spin more than half
the cotton grown within their limits, and after a phenomenal growth during
more than twenty years, the enlargement of old mills and the building of
new mills is still going on. There were twenty-eight new mills built in
the Southern States in 1910 in which 214,028 new spindles, and 3,752
looms were set in operation.
Notwithstanding the amazing progress of the cotton industry in the
Soutliern States, the largest and densest concentration of cotton manu-
facturing in the United States is in Southern New England, as it ever has
been since the days when Samuel Slater set in motion the first water-frame
in Pawtucket, R, I., in 1791.
In the American State papers (Finance, Vol. Ill) a list is given of
the mills existent within thirty miles of the town of Providence, R. I., in
November, 1809. They are enumerated in the order of their establish-
ment; twenty-seven mills were in operation with 20,046 spindles "now in
operation," and having besides 14.494 unemployed spindles ; there were
also fourteen other mills all established in 1809, and evidently not yet in
operation, having 23,000 spindles; the total did not greatly exceed the
capacity of one Fall River mill.
The total number of cotton spindles in operation in the ITnited
States during the year 1910 were 24,192,359 ring spindles and 4,996,586
mule spindles, making a total of 29,188,945, which includes all spindles
using cotton, as well as those in cotton mills only.
The exports of manufactures of cotton from the United States in 1910
amounted to the value of $33,398,672. The home consumption is very large ;
as an exporter of manufactured cottons, the United States ranks third.
OF THE UNITED STATES 69
The imports of goods in the same year amounted to the value of $66,473,-
143-
In the manufacture of cottons, Germany ranks third, its production
being excelled only by the United Kingdom and the United States, and
next to Great Britain, it is the greatest exporter of cotton goods in the
world. Its progress in these lines has been very rapid; in 1887 the total
number of spindles in the empire was 5,054,795, which consumed 1,006,983
bales of cotton, and in 1910 the number of spindles had increased to
10,200,000, with a consumption of 1,660,000 bales of cotton. The number
of looms in operation in 1910 was estimated as 231,199; the average spin-
ning mill has 26,500 spindles, and the average weaving mill 364 looms.
Although cotton manufacturing is an old industry in Germany, it was
not until 1879 that the modern German cotton industry commenced; and not
until 1889 did the export business attain large proportions; since that
time it has steadily increased, until Germany occupies the second position
as an exporter of cotton goods.
The goods exported are chiefly textile specialties, such as knitting,
embroidery, braiding, hosiery, gloves, etched lace, edgings, braids, etc.
The knit-goods industry is one of the most important lines of the export
trade and its steady growth accounts for the increase of her shipments of
cotton manufactures to the United States within a few years, the export
trade of the Empire in this line having doubled. The goods manufactured
are largely of a cheap grade, in the production of which Germany uses a
vast amount of cheap cotton. Next to Japan, she is the largest importer
of Indian cotton ; she also imports large quantities of cotton waste and
of lint. In 1907, her imports of cotton amounted to the value of $127,-
765,064. In 1907, Germany also imported over $29,000,000 worth of cotton
manufactures, of which the principal item was fine yarns for use in the
making of laces and embroideries; the bulk of the yarn imported (in
1907, it was 71,464,700 pounds out of 88,381,282) comes from Great Britain,
with small quantities from Switzerland, France and India.
The manufacture of cotton waste into a great variety of finished
products is quite an industry in Germany. Not only do the mills manu-
facture the waste from the German cotton mills, but they also import cotton
waste from all parts of the world. In many cases the goods manufactured
from this waste goes back in the shape of coarse towels, scrubbing cloths,
dish rags, blankets, etc. In 1909 the value of cotton manufactures imported
into Germany amounted to the sum of $64,349,488, while her exports of
the same amounted to $95,524,870.
The growth of the cotton manufacturing industry in Italy has been
very rapid during the past quarter of a century. There are in Lombardy
about five hundred mills, that being about sixty per cent of the mills in Italy.
The number of looms for the entire country is (exclusive of hand-looms)
about 15,000 with 5,000,000 spindles, employing 300,000 people, the
70 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
weaving machinery being nearly all English. The total amount of the raw
cotton imported into Italy is computed at 700,000 bales, 100,000 of which
are from India ; 500,000 from the United States ; and 30,000 from Egypt.
This amount is on the increase, as are the exportations of manufactured
goods. Turkey, Roumania, Bulgaria, Egypt, South America, India and
the Philippines are the principal foreign markets for the Italian export
trade. Milan is now one of the great cotton textile markets of the world.
During 1906 she sent to the United States cotton fabrics to the value of
$45,000, and cotton waste worth nearly $120,000; to the Philippine Islands,
$100,000 worth of textiles. The centre of the cotton textile trade is a few
miles north of Milan at Busto and Gallarate, where there are about
150,000 looms (this being exclusive of hand-looms) ; there are 5,000,000
spindles in operation, with 300,000 operatives.
Italian hand-made laces are manufactured at Cantu, a place which
lies a few miles north of Milan. Seven thousand persons are employed
in this industry, "point Venice" being so popular both at home and abroad
that the supply is inadequate for the demand. The real Venetian lace is
if course made of pure linen yarn. The total value of manufactured
cotton exports for the first nine months of 1906 was $15,750,000.
In Italy cotton was first manufactured in the fourteenth century. Daru,
in his "History of the Republic of Venice," mentions it briefly, as do
several other writers; but it seems to have been of small importance, and it
is doubtful if the cotton goods made were not mingled with wool; those
made entirely of cotton being brought to Italy and France from Syria and
Asia Minor. The value of the cotton goods exported from Italy in 1910
was $25,646,333 ; and of those imported the value was $7,250,834.
The cotton-manufacturing industry in France is very extensive, nor
is it confined to one locality, being found in thirty-three of the Departments.
Before the loss of Alsace, 6,500,000 spindles were in motion. In 1895 the
number was decreased to 4,600,000, but it has increased since then, and
in 1901 Mr. Gaston Beaumont gives the number of spindles in motion as
5,000,000. The principal centres of production are the Nord, Normandy,
the Eure, the Loire, and the Vosges. Since the annexation of the Upper
Rhine, Normandy has become the chief seat of the industry, and produces
more than one-third of the cotton manufactures of France, Rouen being
the great industrial centre from which port most of the exportations to
foreign countries and to the French colonies in Asia and Africa are made.
The development of the manufacture of cotton in France dates from
the seventeenth century, when the raw material was introduced into
that country for the first time in sufficient quantities to give rise to an
industry. It is, however, mentioned in the archives at a much earlier date,
and according to those of the Seine Inferieure and of the customs at
Dieppe, it was of cotton that candlewicks, gloves, and caps were made, in
Dieppe in 1302, on which there was a tariff of ten per cent. In 1541
OF THE UNITED STATES 71
and '42, there is an entry of fifteen and a half bales of cotton coming from
Portugal, and of a dozen bales coming by way of England. At the close
of the seventeenth century, the industry assumed a certain importance,
mainly because of the new machinery invented about that time in Great
Britain. In 1900 there were 5,500,000 spindles in active operation in
France, and since then the industry has continued to grow, the number of
active spindles in 1910 being 7,100,000, with a consumption of 951,000 bales
of cotton.
France now ranks fourth among the European countries in the manu-
facture of cotton goods, and takes third rank as an exporter. In 1910
the exports of cotton goods from France were valued at $64,619,295 and
the imports at $13,624,804.
Cotton manufacturing in Switzerland has been almost stationary for
the past ten years. The coal and cotton is all imported and most of the
textile machinery is made in England, while all of the lace machines are
made at home. Much of the help in the mills is Italian and German. The
mills are scattered, there being no great manufacturing centres as in other
countries. The factories average 22,000 spindles apiece, or 300 looms.
Hand-looms are a thing of the past, though lace is still to some extent a cot-
tage industry. In textiles, the Swiss stand in the foremost rank for the pro-
duction of fine goods. There are four yarn mills, having over 50,000 spindles.
The President of the Swiss Cotton Manufacturer's Association gives the
following figures for 1908: Spindles, 1,499,170; twister spindles, 117,782;
with 2,342 operatives; and 22,709 looms, with 13,854 operatives. Forty
per cent of the cotton used is Egyptian, and the remainder American,
with a small percentage of Indian. The cotton imported into Switzerland
in 1906 was :
American 30,111,268 pounds
Egyptian 19,766,133
Indian 2,271,222 "
Other 22,502
The total amount of textiles imported from Switzerland in 1906
amounted to the value of $41,000,115.
Cotton manufacturing is the leading industry of Austria, and is
steadily becoming more imjxirtant. The imports of raw cotton into
Austria-Hungary in 1907 amounted to about $50,000,000, of which sixty-
seven per cent was supplied by the United States. On January i, 1907,
there were 3,512,122 spindles in operation, to which about 600,000 were
added during the year, making the total over 4,000,000 spindles, mostly
mule spindles. In 1910 there were in Austria-Hungary 4,643,000 spindles
in active operation.
72 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
The mills are mostly private concerns and are small. There are only
twenty-two mills which operate over 50,000 spindles each, though the
newer mills are much larger. Bohemia now contains about sixty per
cent of the mills in the country. The centre of the Bohemian cotton
industry, which practically means the centre of the cotton industry of
Austria, is Reichenberg, and the towns adjacent to this place are rapidly
becoming mill centres. The largest weaving mill has 2,397 looms ; it is
situated at Grunwald, in Bohemia. About one-third of the 650,000 bales
of cotton imported into Austria comes from India, and it is mixed with
American cotton. In Hungary, the business of manufacturing cotton is
as yet in its infancy, and the government is offering many inducements to
hasten its growth. Rozsahegy is the main cotton manufacturing centre
and owns half the cotton spindles. The largest company is established in
that town, the "Ungarisch Textilindustrie Aktiengesellschaft," which was
founded in 1894. It has two spinning mills with 50,000 and 54,000 spindles
each, a total of 104,000 spinning spindles; 7,000 twister spindles; 1,250
ordinary looms ; and 900 Northrup looms. The next largest mill is at
Budapest, and has 13,732 spindles and 340 looms. The present consumption
of cotton is about 50,000 bales a year. Coarse goods are chiefly produced ;
the finer goods being sent to Bohemia to be bleached. Most of the mill
machinery is English. The hand-loom is still in use and the weavers use
15,000,000 pounds of bundle yarn yearly, part of which is supplied by
Hungarian mills and part imported. The skilled help in the Hungarian
mills is mostly Austrian. In. 1907 there were in operation in Hungary 200,-
000 cotton spindles. The exports of cotton manufactures of Austria-
Hungary for 1910 amounted to $I3,.?57,962, and the imports to $12,449,783.
Of other European countries, Belgium had in 1910 1.322,000 cotton
spindles, and in 1909 exported cotton manufactures to the amount
of $54,004,530; the importations of those goods for the same year amount-
ing to $49,209,711. Spain has 1,853,000 active spindles; Portugal, 476.-
000; the Netherlands, 426,000; Sweden, 377,000; Greece, 9,000; Denmark,
83,000 and Norway about 74,000.
The leading cotton manufacturing districts of Russia are Moscow,
with about 5,000,000 spindles; the Baltic Provinces, with about 1,800,000;
and Poland, with about 1,250,000. During the past twenty years a notable
growth in this industry has been achieved, the number of spindles having
increased 120 per cent during that period. In 1900 the cotton spindles
in active operation numbered about 7,500,000, and in 1910 had increased
to 8,250,000. In 1909 cotton manufactures were exported from Russia
to the amount of $10,689,328, while the importations amounted to $14,-
174,430-
Concerning the condition of the cotton trade in India in the first
decade of the twentieth century, we cull much valuable information from
the official report of Mr. W. A. Graham Clark, special agent of the Depart-
OF THE UNITED STATES 73
ment of Commerce and Labor. India, besides being a great cotton-produc-
ing country, is also a great cotton manufacturing country, and a large
exporter mostly of yarn, much of which is later re-imported in the shape of
cloth. The amount of cotton yarns spun in British India and the native
states in 1906 was :
Nos. I to 10 166,066,232 pounds
" II " 20 .' 359.363.974 "
" 21 " 30 105,779,111 "
" 31 " 40 15,607,009 "
" above 40 i, 139.477 "
And in the same year she used 726,695,323 pounds of imported yarn.
The first spinning mill in India was established in 1817 on the banks
of the Hooghly, near Calcutta, but it passed out of existence after a few
years. The first cotton factory in India dates from 1854, when a Parsee
merchant, named Cowasji Davur, built a small mill at Tardes, near Bombay.
All the mills are patterned after the English type, and are filled with
British machinery. The principal mill centres are Bombay, Ahmedabad,
Calcutta, and Cawnpore, but the industry is spreading out and many
mills have been built also in the native states. There are 217 mills in
India, with 25,279,595 spindles and 52,668 looms, the largest mill being
the Jacob Sassoon mill at Pard, near Bombay, with 92,840 spindles and
1,810 looms. The next largest number of spindles is 86,040 in the
Bengal mill at Calcutta, while the largest number of looms in a single mill
is 2,015 i" the Century mill at Bombay. We must not forget, while men-
tioning the manufacturing resources, the 2,700,000 hand weavers, who con-
sumed in 1906, 264,292,492 pounds of cotton yarn, to which must be added
the hand-spun yarn which never finds its way into either the market or
the mill ; this averages about 325,000 bales, or 13,000,000 pounds, which
gives nearly 400,000,000 pounds of yarn used by hand-loom weavers. A
leading Indian authority estimates that the production of native hand
looms amounts to 1,650,000,000 yards annually.
In 1906, India exported yarn to the amount of $46,738,000. The export
of Indian piece goods is very mUch smaller than that of the yarn, but
it is increasing. On coarse insized goods, the hand looms of India have
practically a monopoly. In fine goods, they do not begin to compete with
England, and the present competition is confined to medium heavy goods,
such as T cloths, long cloths, sheetings, and the coarser grade of dhooties.
India's best cloth market is in East Africa, next comes the Straits Settle-
ments, then China, Ceylon, Turkey, and the Philippines. The cloth exported
to the last-named country consists mostly of "Madras goods." In 1906,
India shipped more cloth to the Philippines than did the United States.
74 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
The manufacture of cotton is one of the largest and most promising
industries in Japan. The mills are well built and stocked, mainly with
English machinery, and the English methods of preparing the cotton are
followed. The operatives are mainly women and girls. The first cotton
mill in Japan was organized in 1868 by Prince Shimadzu, at Kagorhima, in
the province of Satsuma. This mill contained 6,000 spindles, all the ma-
chinery being imported from England by the prince. In 1887, there were
twenty-one mills with 74,120 spindles; and in 1905, fifty cotton mills were
in operation with 38,494 looms and 8,645,863 spindles, to which were
added during the trade boom of 1906-7, 467,100 additional spindles. The
Kanegafuchi Spinning Company is the largest in Japan and operates 218,-
080 spindles and one hundred looms. No statistics are available as to the
number of spindles and looms in Japan. There are a good many hand-
loom factories, containing looms up to one hundred. These are employed
in the weaving of fine muslins. The exports are on the increase to an
appreciable extent; in 1905, Japan exported 267,114 bales of yarn, much of
which goes to China. The exports of cloth are rapidly increasing, and
Japanese goods are familiar in the Orient ; while there is a slight decrease
in the exportations of yarn, owing to the increased demands of the
home industry.
China, in 1910, had seventeen mills, 2,200 looms and 463,948 spindles,
all occupied in manufacturing goods for home consumption.
Latin America contains 307 cotton mills which are situated as foUovvs :
Countries. Mills.
Brazil 137
Mexico 139
Peru 7
Colombia 5
Venezuela 2
Argentina 6
Guatemala I
Chile 3
Ecuador 4
Uruguay 3
Total 307 1,834,528 64,877
There are no cotton mills in Cuba, Hayti, Dominican Republic, Sal-
vador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay or Bolivia.
The capital invested in the industry is probably about $140,000,000.
The mills are mainly one-story only. There are some few Northrup
looms made under the English patent, but most of the machinery is
English, and the mills follow the English customs in most respects.
Spindles.
Looms.
1,000,000
35.000
726,278
25.327
52,250
1.750
20,000
300
11,000
250
9,000
1,200
6,000
150
5.000
400
5,000
200
300
OF THE UNITED STATES 75
Brazil's methods in cotton manufacture are crude and costly. The
amount of middle grade goods sold is small ; the fine fabrics and better
grades are imported because the wealthy classes will have them at any
price; the cheaper and coarser grades are made at home. Most of the
mills arc in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The cost of transporting
the raw cotton to the mills is excessive, as it is carted, the vehicles being
small and the cotton poorly baled and bulky. Labor is generally inefficient
and power costly, coal being imported for all purposes. Yet the cotton
milling business is successful, owing to the excessive import duties, which
protect the mill owner at the expense of the consumer. The cotton
goods imports of Brazil have been $15,000,000 to $16,000,000 for some
years back, and in 1906 the United .States' share in this trade was $590,007.
Brazil is the most important cotton manufacturing country in Latin
America, and its mills turn out over 40,000,000 dollars worth of cotton
goods. These arc mainly gray goods and coarse, colored cottons, though
there are seven print mills with thirty printing machines. Several of the
larger mills make white shirting, muslins, lawns, etc., of fine quality.
About half the mills are run by steam power; about a fourth are run by
water power, and the remainder, which includes most of the larger mills,
are run by electricity. The Mexican output is mainly coarse goods of nar-
row width, but about half a dozen mills that now make goods of medium
fine grade, including white shirtings, muslins, organdies, fine prints, napped
goods, handkerchiefs, napkins and towels, which compare favorably with
those imported.
Peru makes no prints, but, in addition to gray cloth, makes some
bleached goods. Columbia, Venezuela and Argentina make gray sheeting,
to which the latter countr}' adds drills, duck and a small amount of colored
goods. LTruguay makes duck, coarse sheeting, khaki, denim, plaid flan-
nelettes, bath towels, and a few fancy woven goods. In Chile are manu-
factured both cotton and linen goods, ginghams, stripes, colored flannels,
etc.
There is one mill in Central America with 6,000 spindles and 150 looms,
making gray and colored goods.
There is but one cotton mill in the Philippines, which is situated
at Manila, It is owned by an English importing house, uses English
machinery, and is operated by Englishmen. The cotton used is chiefly
American, which is mixed with one-fourth native. The mill makes its
soft waste into candle wicks. The machinery consists of an opener and
picker and one lapper; there are thirty-two cards, draw frames and
fly frames, 10,000 spindles and 220 loooms, a few of which are dobby
looms. The product is mostly coarse white shirtings with some convict-
stripe cloth, and a few looms on chambray. Considerable hand-loom
weaving is done in the country districts of the Philippines, and some
really fine work is done. The annual imports of yam are valued at from
76 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
$750,cxx) to $1,000,000, in addition to that made at the mill in Manila and
by hand-spinning. Much of the native weaving is done with fibres other
than cotton. The quantity of yarn and thread imported into the Philippines
is steadily increasing. In 1903, it amounted to $641,164, and in 1906 had
risen to $1,092,563. Yarn and thread are classed together, so it is impossible
to particularize as to the quantity of each, but yarn undoubtedly prepon-
derates. Over half of this comes from Great Britain, with Japan next;
then Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Spain, India and China, with
smaller quantities from other countries. The greater portion of the yarn
is shipped in 400-pound bales, containing forty bundles of ten pounds
each. The finer and fancy yarns are shipped in bales and boxes of various
sizes.
The possibilities of the trade in cotton fabrics in the Philippines are
immense, the imports in 1906 amounting in value to $2,146,964. These con-
sisted of closely-woven cloths, loosely-woven cloths, wearing apparel, car-
pets, yarn and thread, quilting and piques, velveteens and corduroys, tulles
and laces, knit fabrics, etc.
— t: o
OF THE UNITED STATES 77
COMBING AND CARDING
The hand-combing and carding of wool and cotton must of necessity
have been one of the primal domestic arts, since without it there could
have been no weaving of cloth. The operation is, in fact, pictured upon
those earliest records of the industry and ingenuity of man — the Egyptian
tablets. But though various minor improvements and modifications were
made from time to time in the operation of combing, it was not until
the eighteenth century that any attempt was made to invent machinery for
this purpose.
The hand-comber, under the old system, employed two combs (see
Plate 4) ; one of these a "pad" comb being affixed to a post, at a height
convenient for the comber, by means of an iron rod fastened into the post.
This raw wool having been submitted to the treatment necessary to pre-
pare it for the operation, was "lashed" into each comb placed upon the pad.
The combs, being charged with wool, were placed in the "comb-pot" to be
heated, the comber meanwhile preparing handfuls of wool for his next
charge. The workman then placed one comb upon the pad and with the
other in hand began the combing operation by passing the teeth of one
comb through the wool upon the other until the fibres of each became
perfectly free of short wool or noils, the latter being left embedded in
the comb heads.
The teeth of these combs, as may be seen (Plate 4), were
pointed and tapering, arranged in three rows, the outermost row of the
teeth being longer than those in the middle row which again were longer
than those in the inner row. The stumps of these teeth which were of steel,
were fastened about one-third of an inch apart, in a wooden stock cov-
ered with horn, and having a short handle. The operation was usually begun
with a comb bearing only two rows of teeth, and to comb gradually
from the tip of the wool up as a woman combs her hair, and was finished
with the closer and finer comb. The short, flocky wool left in the comb
after the comber had detached the combed and cleaned "tops," was, under
the name of noils or noyles, set aside for the blanket or coarse cloth trade.
The very earliest English patent relating to wool-combing was that
accorded to Isaac Mills, of Bellerton, in Somersetshire, in the year 1723, for
"an instrument for heating combs for combing and pressing wool." Though
the invention of Isaac Mills bore no reference to combing machinery, it
throws light upon the methods of wool-combing as they existed at that date.
Having, as he represented in his application, "been bred up in and followed
;8 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
the trade of wool-combing and pressing for twenty-five years," he goes on
to explain that "the usual way of method for kembing of wooll was by a fire
made in a dry pot, the fire being open to the kembs, which did often neal
the kembs and burn the wooll." It was further stated that for the pressing,
the planks or iron plates were heated by a fire open to them, which often
burned the planks and heated the iron plates so unequally that it frequently
"burned the goods, to the great loss of the tradesman and discredit of the
woolen manufacturer." His invention, calculated to remedy these defects,
he describes as follows : "Two instruments of iron, to be used in the
said trade of wool kembing and pressing, which are cast in such a form
and contrived in such a manner, that a fire being made in the body of the
instrument of iron for kembing, the kembs receive the heat from the same
in such an equal proportion as neither to neal the kembs nor burn the wooll ;
and that for the pressing, the planks or plates being placed in the body of
the other iron instrument, and a fire being made to encompass or surround
the same, will heat the planks or plates in so true a degree as wholly to
prevent the burning of the goods, and the great loss frequently sustained
by the traders in the woolen manufacture thereby."
It was, however, left for that marvellous inventor. Dr. Edmund Cart-
wright, to make the first practical attempt to solve the great problem of
wool-combing by machinery, and though many inventive minds bent their
energies to the task of its ultimate and practical elucidation, to him belongs
the merit of creating the germ of all subsequent machines for the comb-
ing of wool; for the leading -principle of Cartwright's machine finds repre-
sentation even in those of inventors who followed their own special lines
and who were ignorant of his wool-combing achievements. (See Plate 4.)
The wool-combing machine of Dr. Cartwright was even more original in
its conception than that of his power loom, for in the latter case there was
already in use a machine for weaving, cumbrous in its operation and slow
in its motion, it is true, but which had performed its task with more or
less perfection for thousands of years. In this case, it was different;
a machine for the purpose of combing wool was undreamed of as yet ; there
was no intermediary operation between the simple process of hand-combing
and the complex machinery now to be applied to the same purpose. We
can present to our readers no more interesting description of the evolution
of this machine than that afforded by the inventor himself in an article
contributed to a scientific periodical of his day, a part of which is here
quoted :
"This machine is, I believe, the first of the kind ; at least, all former
attempts (if there have been any) must have proved abortive; no wool was
ever known to have been combed any other way than by the close and
expensive process of hand labor. I obtained my first patent for this
important invention on the 27th of April, 1790. In consequence of some
additional improvements, I obtained a second patent on the nth of De-
OF THE UNITED STATES 79
cember in the same year. But it was not until nearly two years afterward
that my machine was brought to its present state of simplicity and per-
fection, when I took out a third patent, dated May 15, 1792. The wool,
for particularly nice work, goes through three operations ; otherwise, two
are sufficient. The first operation opens the wool, and makes it connect
together in a rough sliver, but does not clear it. The clearing is per-
formed by the second, and, if necessary, a third operation. A set of
machinery, consisting of three machines, will require the attendance of an
overlooker and ten children, and will comb a pack, or 240 pounds in twelve
hours. Machine-combed wool is bettter, especially for machine spinning,
by at least twelve per cent, being all equally mixed, and the slivers uniform
and of any required length. On the first introduction of this machinery, it
was found, when not carefully attended, to produce a greater proportion of
noil and pinion than good hand-combing, but in its present improved state
it makes much less than any hand-combing whatever. The advantages of
machine-combing arise not merely from the saving of expense ; yarn spun
from it has a decided superiority, especially for curious purposes, such as
superfine hosiery, etc. At Messrs. Davison & Hawksley's mill in the
neighborhood of Nottingham, where this machinery is made use of, yarn is
spun of quality which it was thought no mill spinning could ever have ar-
rived at. In justice, however, to the spirit and ingenuity of those gentle-
men, it must be added, that their spinning machinery is supposed to be
upon a very superior construction. Besides the above mill, my invention
is already introduced into many others, and in all probability, as trade
revives on the restoration of peace, will be universally adopted." (See
Plate 4.)
The machine received the sobriquet "Big Ben" (after a celebrated
prize fighter of that day), because the action of the crank lasher resembled
the motions of a pugilist's arm. Like all other primal machines, the wool-
comber met with opposition from some, was imitated by others, with little
benefit to its inventor, and greatly to the detriment of its successful intro-
duction into practical manufacturing; consequently, though embodying the
principles of all future machines of the same character, Dr. Cartwright's
machine did not fulfil the expectations of its inventor and others, nor for
many years afterward was there a machine upon the market which was
capable of clearing the wool as successfully as it could be done by the
human hand. In 1793, a certain William Soplis obtained a patent for a
series of combs and combers, an ingenious invention which met with little
encouragement. The combs in this machine had curved teeth, and were
affixed to arms and combers which when in action turned toward the
combs.
In 1793 also made his initial appearance an inventor who later became
prominent in this field, Mr. John Hawksley, who, with Henry Wright,
applied for a patent in regard to machinery "for combing and preparing
8o TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
fibrous materials for 'spinning.' " This machine consisted of an upright
shaft revolving forty times a minute ; a comb wheel with three rows cJf teeth
on each arm ; a combing cylinder with three rows of teeth, the wool
being drawn from the cylinder by means of wheels and conducted by
rollers into a can or basket ; a feeding frame consisting of a fly with
brushes and rollers, "to lay the wool close to the teeth of the cylinder," a
pair of blast bellows for the purpose of conveying hot air to the wool,
and to lay it ; a circular brush which took the noils off the teeth ; close to
the brush was a second row of teeth to take the noils from the brush as
it revolved.
Forming a portion of Hawksley and Wright's 1793 patent was a
second combing machine which consisted of a "straight range of combs
in three compartments, and connected by a hook or catch at the top,
moving in a slide or groove, and made to remove or take off after they
had passed 'the long cogged wheels, when they would have got quit of
the wool.' A rack which had a very slow, sliding motion was moved by a
pinion, two cogged wheels drew the wool from the comb teeth, against
which were placed two conducting rollers. The motion of the straight
range of combs being slowly progressive, it followed that when these had
advanced the length of one compartment, that part was taken away and
discharged of its noils, and then passed to the other end of the machine
on an inclined plane or otherwise, and fixed in the vacancy, and so on
alternately, by which means a perpetual sliver of wool was produced."
In 1795, a method of ."opening the staple and bringing it into a
proper state for lashing upon a comb" was patented by John Passman, and
in the same year one Anthony Amatt received Letters Patent for a ma-
chine which successfully carried out the idea of working the hand comb by
mechanical means. According to its inventor, this machine was upon
"entire new principles for combing wool and heckling flax and hemp,"
and might be worked "by water, steam or horse mills, or by any other
moving power." The patent covered three distinct machines for filling,
combing and drawing off. Later inventors paid much attention to this idea
of Amatt, and improvements upon it were patented by James Noble in
1834; Donisthorpe & Rawson in 1835 and 1840; by Collier and several
others ; but although these successive efforts brought the principle of the
mechanism to the highest degree of perfection," the machines required
so many hands to attend them and caused so great an amount of waste
as to render them very ineffective when compared with the best and
newest machines.
A patent was taken out in 1794 by Mr. John Hawksley for a further
improvement in wool-combing machinery, the principal features of which
were: A circular revolving comb-pot to heat the combs, a "lasher or
layer-on of wool" on the combing machine ; also a socket or holster in
which to place the combs in their respective compartments in "a readier
OF THE UNITED STATES 8i
manner than theretofore used," for drawing off the wool from the machines.
Thus, with more or les$ important improvements chiefly erfected by Mr.
Hawksley at the close of the eighteenth century, Cartwright's combing
machine remained a beacon indicating the course to be pursued by future
inventors toward success in this line, and the woolen industry was for
many a long year to depend upon the skill of the hand-comber for the
bulk of its prepared material.
Having recorded the achievements of the earlier inventors of wool-
combing machinery, we now come to the transition period during which
the old method of hand-combing gradually yielded place to the perfected
wool-combing machinery. The change was gradual and the history of it
is interesting. There were in hand-combing three operations, and these
processes must have their counterpart in any machine that combs wool;
more than this, as with hand-combing, some descriptions of fibrous sub-
stances could not be perfectly cleaned, even with two or three combings,
and the top had to be carefully picked by hand before the final impurities
could be removed ; so the greatest difficulty with which the inventors had to
contend was that of attaining as perfect a combing of the middle portion
as of the ends of the fibre, and it was long before this difficulty was
overcome satisfactorily, and in the later machines in addition to the three
processes of the earlier machines and of hand-combing: namely, i, a feed-
ing apparatus : 2, a working comb ; 3, a drawing-off movement ; there is added
a fourth, the combing of the middle portion of the fibres by means of an
intersecting comb."
In 1805, James Noble obtained a patent for a machine for "discharging
a wool comb or combs by separating the tear from the noils, drawing
what was commonly called a sliver or slivers from the comb or combs,
after or before the combs were worked or the wool was combed upon
the same, and for other useful purposes." This invention seems to have
borne no fruit, and the same may be said of those patented by Mr.
Noble in 1833, 1835 a"^ 1846. In 1871, Mr. George Gilpin obtained
Letters Patent for a machine for combing and preparing wool, consisting of
a framework upon which was mounted "four rings of iron, with six
arms, each mounted upon iron spindles placed parallel to each other. Upon
each ring four small standards were screwed to suppport the ends of
wooden bars fixed parallel to each spindle, forming a frame to these bars,
and to these were attached the combs. These wheels and bars were dis-
tinguished as the revolving comb frames, and the stationary and the
sliding frame.
At this juncture came an important development in the Collier
machine, patented in 1814 by James Collier. In his specifications he claimed
to prevent loss and unnecessary labor upon "a substance which has always
been considered the staple produce of this country, separating each fibre
of wool, etc., so as to make them follow a direction parallel to each other,
82 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
and, by not holding or retaining them longer than is necessary to straighten
the fibres, they slip through a number of points or teeth, so as to separate
them from each other without breaking or otherwise injuring them." He
employed in his machine "a small steam boiler to introduce steam into
the inside of a taking-up roller, which was constructed of metal and made
hollow, for the purpose of receiving the steam."
The next machine of importance in the progress of wool-combing ma-
chinery was one after the Collier model. It had new and extensive im-
provements, and was patented by Mr. John Piatt, of Salford, in 1827, and
was for many years known as the Piatt & Collier machine, which, though
more largely used by spinners than any of its predecessors, and capable
of producing good results on certain classes of wools, was, in comparison
with modern machines, very ineffectual, since it produced a very large
amount of noils, and it was impossible to comb the middle portion of the
wool at all. It is, however, extremely interesting as being a distinct ad-
vance in the right direction. See James' "History of the Worsted Man-
ufacture" for a full description of this machine, which is too lengthy for
insertion here.
Many and varied as had been the efforts of inventors to improve
upon the principles of Cartwright's machine, it is to the inventive genius
of Mr. Donisthorpe that the world is indebted for the practical wool-
combing machine of modern times ; many improvements have, no doubt, been
made in this species of machine since his time, yet he it was who first
made the positive success of the wool-combing machine an accomplished
fact. George Edmund Donisthorpe was born at Market Bosworth in 1810;
he early showed inventive genius, and at the age of fifteen he invented
an improvement in the stocking frame which was universally adopted and
became very valuable. In the year 1835 he was associated with Mr. S.
Cuiiliffe Lister in certain improvements in wool-combing. He then applied
all his energies to the purpose of making the combing machine of practical
utility, and in 1840 took out a patent for further improvements. Two
years more of incessant labor followed, and in 1842 Mr. Donisthorpe
obtained Letters Patent for a combing machine of the "Cartwright order
in which many valuable improvements were for the first time produced."
To quote from his specifications, these were as follows: i, teeth set at a
coarser gauge at the end where they begin to work the wool and of a finer
gauge where the teeth penetrated closer up to the head of the comb contain-
ing the wool ; 2, the combination of working combs with combs which
move in a circular or endless course ; 3, an improved arrangement for
filling the combs with wool ; 4, in applying steam or hot water to the heads of
combs placed on a revolving axis, where such combs had a movement to and
from their axis of motion, in addition to their rotation, round such an axis ;
5, a method of using drawing rollers having an axis only at one end, and
6, the use of two or more rotary combs with a moving, curved or endless
OF THE UNITED STATES 83
comb. In 1843 ^^ took out an additional patent for three further im-
provements. He then entered into partnership with Mr. S. Cunliffe Lister,
who was first attracted into the field by the sight of Mr. Donisthorpe's
machine of 1842, and he bought the patent.
To relate the history of mechanical wool-combing in its proper sequence
we must mention here the invention of Josue Heilmann, the progenitor of
the embroidery machine. In 1841, Mr. Heilmann, who knew of and had
seen in operation at Malmerspach the Collier wool-combing machine, ar-
riv^ed at the conclusion that a different system of machinery would be
required for the manipulation of cotton, in which he was more interested.
He is said to have discovered the principle which made his invention suc-
cessful while watching his daughter comb her long hair. He applied
himself to the task he had undertaken with such ardor that his first model
was finished in six months, and in the presence of Messrs. Hartman, Liebach,
Bourcart and Schlumberger he operated it successfully upon samples of both
wool and cotton. This model is preserved in the Industrial Museum at
Mulhouse. Thus was the problem of combing cotton by machinery finally
solved. Heilmann's machine not only combed that material with a per-
fection that had never before been attained, but by the use of certain
modifications it was capable of being applied to all other textile materials.
This greatest invention of Heilmann was his last. "Its scope was so ex-
tensive and its principle so effective that it has been considered worthy
to rank with Jacquard's famous loom. For cotton it was intended to
supersede beating by hand and beaters, and to sort the filaments and re-
unite those of equal length ; for wool-combing it aimed to supersede hand-
combing, as well as the wool-combing machines then existing; for the
floss of silk it would do away with the cards and combing by hand; and
for flax and hemp he also hoped to obtain a more perfect method. In Heil-
man's machine the first operation, the feeding of the slivers to be combed,
was accomplished by means of a feeding apparatus and a nipper; this
nipper was the most essential point of the whole machine, and, like other
important improvements in machines for specific purposes, it was made and
applied by other inventors concurrently with Heilman, Mr. Lister and Mr.
Donisthorpe, who in England were working indefatigably toward the pro-
duction of a perfect wool-combing machine. Mr. Lister having purchased
^r. Donisthorpe's patent rights, at first alone and afterward in con-
junction with Mr. Donisthorpe, he labored late and early to make the
latter's machine of practical value, and in 1843 ^^- Lister succeeded at
combing in Mawningham the first fine wool that was ever combed by ma-
chinery, and so successful was the operation of the machine that before
the end of the year Mr. Lister received orders for over fifty machines from
two of the largest spinning firms in the country. For many years, Mr. Lister
commanded the wool-combing trade of Great Britain, and he received a
royalty of one thousand pounds for each machine, which is said to be
84 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
the largest patent right ever before paid. The three things which it was
requisite that Lister and Donisthorpe should bring about were: To make
a machine that would comb perfectly; to prevent clogging, and to reduce
the proportion of waste or noils accruing in the operation. There was
no machine then existent that met these requirements ; but by successive ef-
forts they finally produced the "nip" machine in which the tuft of wool
"was drawn by a nipper through a gill comb." In their machine the wool
was drawn through the teeth of the comb horizontally; while Heilmann
used a circular carder and drew the teeth through the wool in a circle.
However, Heilmann's English patent was taken out in 1846, while Lister
and Donisthorpe first made use of the nip principle in 1850, and not until
1 85 1 was their machine more nearly perfected. So it comes about that
the French are disposed to undervalue Mr. Lister's achievements, and in
France and Germany, Heilmann is looked upon as the only originator of
the "nip" system. It did not supplant Lister's wool-combing machine in
England. Six Lancashire firms paid the sum of $30,000 for the English
right of Heilmann's machine for combing cotton, and a Leeds firm paid
the sum of 20,000 pounds for the use of the same for flax, while Mr.
Lister purchased the English rights for wool ; the superiority of the
Lister and other wool-combing machines being proven by the fact that even
after the expiration of Heilmann's patent the trade continued to pay a roy-
alty of 1,000 pounds per machine to Lister.
We now come to an epoch in the wool-combing industry which brings
us abreast with the condition of the industry as it is to-day. About 1846,
Mr. Isaac Holden, who had been making investigations in the line of wool-
combing, became associated with Mr. Lister, and in 1848 they formed the
firm of Lister & Holden with a factory at St. Denis in France, and in 1848
also they took out a patent for a square-motion wool-combing machine which
was necessarily very imperfect, but successive improvements were made
until 1856, when Mr. Holden took out a patent for a machine which embodied
the perfection of his idea of a square-motion wool-combing machine, the
beauty of its work rendering it pre-eminent for the classes of wool upon
which it was employed. From this time on minor improvements were con-
tinually efifected. Mr. Holden was the first to use washing operations
for wool, and he was the first to use the important process of carding
as a preparation for combing at Cullingsworth in 1837.
We now arrive at the production of the Noble machine for which
letters patent wr-re obtained in i^^S- since when continuous inventions of
more or less importance have been applied to the Noble machine, which is
thus described : "It is, in brief, merely dabbling a lock of wool on to two
sets of pins placed close together, then parting the two sets so that a
portion of the wool adheres to each, afterward drawing the wool thus
drawn to make the combed top. The arrangement of the various parts is
somewhat more complicated than in the nip comb, though the relative
OF THE UNITED STATES 85
adjustments are not so delicate." In Europe, the three machuiei which
rule the wool-combing trade are : The Square Motion, the N'.tble and the
Heilmann "Nip." The square motion is in general use in France, and is,
of coarse, in operation at Isaac Holden & Sons' extensive works at Brad-
ford; the Noble is the machine most widely adopted in England, and the
Heilmann possesses the field in Germany. In spite of all improvements,
each machine has its own peculiar drawbacks and defects. The Noble
machine can only deal with prepared and not with carded wool, etc. The
wool-combing machine has -proved so valuable to the textile industries of
Europe and America that those most prominent in its gradual development
deserve all honor and admiration. In the long Hst that might be wiritten
of those who have done service in this cause those of Cartwright, Heilmann,
Donisthorpe, Lister, Holden and Noble stand out most prommently. The
list would be too long did we notice all who contributed to the perfecting
of these machines, the history of which has been more fully dwelt upon
in works solely devoted to that purpose. In America, we search the
records of the woolen industry in vain for an earlier mention of wool-
combing machinery, and find none until 1845, when we read of the New
England Worsted Company at Saxonville, running sixteen sets of cards and
twenty combing machines. This is due to the fact that the worsted industry
is younger here than in foreign countries and in comparison with them only
partially developed. There was no worsted manufacture in the United
States until 1842; and as late as i860 it was practically confined to three
mills, that is, outside the carpet mills, which do not count in this particular
instance, since carpet yarns and loosely twisted woolen yarns for knitting
are carded alone. The procedure in preparing worsted yarn, for which
long-stapled wools are mainly used, is entirely different. Worsted yarn
which is made from wool fibres brought as far as possible into a level
parallel condition is manufactured by one of two methods. In the first, the
long yarn is drawn, gilled and combed ; in the second, the medium and short
stapled wools are first carded and afterward combed.
The mills mentioned were the Pacific, the Hamilton Woolen and the
Manchester Mills, which were established before the wool-combing ma-
chinery was brought to perfection ; but they gradually introduced the new
machines, and before the close of the Civil War a number of them were in
operation in this country, and conditions had arisen under which the mak-
ing of many lines of worsted goods was possible ; since then the growth of
the industry has been very rapid in the United States, so that in 1870 the
wool-combing machines had increased to the number of 261 ; in 1880 to 515 ;
in 1890 to 839; and in 1900 to 1,451.
Very little worsted machinery has been made until recently in this
country, the bulk of it being imported from England. A feature of the
English wool-combing industry — namely, its specialization — has been in-
augurated, to a certain extent, in this country by one of our largest mills.
86 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
In England it is a survival of the days of hand manufacture continued
on the introduction of machinery as being the most convenient and economi-
cal system of manufacturing. Thus the enormous quantity of wool which is
there woven into worsted goods passes through a few wool-combing estab-
lishments. In Yorkshire there are but about sixty combing establishments
which prepare wool for hundreds of worsted and woolen mills ; at Bradford
the firm of Isaac Holden & Sons owns two immense combing plants, and also
one at Rheims and one at Croix, near Ronbaix, in France. It has been offi-
cially stated that two-fifths of all the colonial wool sold in London is combed
by this firm. On the continent the Antwerp top-market is an outlet for an
immense quantity of tops, which the enterprising Belgians prepare and
comb from burry Argentina and other defective wools.
Realizing that the cheapest and most perfectly combed wools were pro-
curable only when the manufacture was specialized on a large scale, one
of the foremost woolen manufacturing firms in New England, the Arling-
ton Mills, began the production of " tops," for which they find a ready sale.
The combing machine is also applied to the preparation of cotton ;
Heilmann's machine being invented with that end in view, and as each
combing machine has a capacity of two and a half cards, it will be seen
that the advent of combing machinery greatly facilitated the cotton in-
dustry. When Heilmann's machine first came into use in 1850 it was said
to be a comber for short fibres. This arose from the fact that no attempt
had been made to comb cotton before that, but only the long wool fibre, and
when the machines were set to combing Egyptian cottons of one and three-
eighths inch staple, it was thought that this was combing the shortest cotton
it would pay to comb. A demand arose in the hosiery trade for very
regular and very clean yarn of coarse counts, and this primarily suggested
the combing of cotton five-eighths to one and one-eighth in length, which
is what is meant by short cotton. With this the Heilmann machine was
incompetent to deal ; first, the diameter of the detaching roll is too great
to deal with such short fibres, and second, on the Heilmann comber it is
impossible to get a satisfactory piecing with stock shorter than one and
one-eighth inches, and it fails entirely below one inch. In fact, though
the Heilmann cotton combing machine had remained without a serious
rival until recently, and though the work done by it is admittedly excellent,
the use of it was restricted to the finer brands of cotton spinning, as it has
long been conceded that its production was small, that the piecing and
overlap fall short of perfection, and that it is only effective when treating
long cotton.
The Pinel-Lecoeur comber was invented by Hetherington to meet these
difficulties. This machine, while it reduced the waste very largely and made
a fair piecing with five-eighth inch Surat cotton, was not altogether satis-
factory for three reasons : First, the production was no greater than that
of the Heilmann, and, although it made a better piecing in appearance, the
OF THE UNITED STATES 87
sliver was not amalgamated at the piecing and drawn together, but simply
overlaid. Second, the waste was still too great, causing undue expense.
Third, the machine was extremely complicated and necessarily difficult to set.
In the United States, combing machines, for use in the preparation of
cotton, were first installed at the "Berkley Mills," Berkley, R. I., about
1875, where Edward Kilburn, desirous of producing finer goods than had
previously been made in this country, put in a set or two of combers manu-
factured by Parr, Curtis & Company, of Manchester, England ; the Ponemah
Mills, of Taftville, Conn., followed this example, as did other mills during
the next few years.
The first combing machines made in this country were of the Heilmann
pattern, and were built by the Providence Machine Company, Providence,
R. I., in 1877, for the Elizabeth Mills, Hills Grove and Greenwich, R. I.,
and the Merrick Mills, Holyoke, Mass.
Later on, combers made by John Hetherington & Sons, Manchester,
England ; Dobson & Barlow, Bolton, England, and Plat Bros., of Oldham,
England, were imported by different mills in New England. Some time
about 1885 to 1890, John Hetherington & Sons brought into this country
the Pinel-LeccEur comber described above, some of which vVere put into
the Hadley Mill, Holyoke, Mass., now owned by the American Thread
Company. These machines failed to give satisfaction and were finally dis-
carded by all who had used them. Several other combers were invented
about this period, but the only one to come into this country would seem
to have been the Alsatian, which was built at Alsace, France, and was im-
ported by Stoddard, Haserick & Richards, of Boston, who are still the
agents (1911) for this machine. This Alsatian was specially designed for
the combing of short staples, for which there was an increasing demand;
it was a single-head comber, with one combing cylinder and a top comb
of the original Heilmann principle; but, owing to an improved napping and
piecing mechanism, it was enabled to hold, comb and piece a heavy lap,
which gave it a larger production than that of the standard Heilmann type
comber, built by the English firms, but the quality of the work was never
considered equal to that produced by the original Heilmann type machine,
because of the extremely small combing surface; but, although this ma-
chine has been superseded by superior combers, a great many of this type
were sold and remained in use in 1911.
About 1890, Harry Lever, a former fitter for John Hetherington &
Sons, conceived the idea of combing cotton by an entirely new principle,
being financed by Mr. Redmond, of the Arlington Mills, in Lawrence. He
built what was known as the Redmond-Lever comber, and four of the first
machines of this type were installed in the Howland Mill, No. 2, New Bed-
ford, Mass. This comber was designed for the handling of shorter staples
with a large production, and had a detaching mechanism which advanced
the lap to the cylinder intermittently, the cylinder being composed of three
88 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
small nippers that closed on the tuft advanced by the detaching mechanism
in turn as the cylinder revolved. Just before these nippers closed on the
tuft, the needle segment on the cylinder combed the end nipped by the
nipper, and as the tuft was carried forward by the cylinder it was combed
by the top comb, and after passing the top comb it was pieced to the tuft
which had gone before and drawn through the rollers called the piecing
rollers, from thence into a conductor or cylinder pan up to the table or
silver plate in the usual way, and through a draw box, as in the Heilmann
type comber. This was the second comber that was built in this country,
and was really an American invention ; but it was never completed.
About 1895 the Mason Machine Shops, of Taunton, Mass., designed
and built a comber which was almost an exact counterpart or duplicate of
the Heilmann comber, and they have perhaps a hundred of these machines
in active use to-day. About the same time the Mumford comber, built by
Glabasch & Mumford in (Germany, was brought to this country, and was
strongly recommended as a high-production comber for short staples. The
Mason Machine Shops secured the agency for this machine and a license to
build it in America. This comber had a detaching mechanism which de-
livered the cotton to the cylinder intermittently, with a nipper separate
from the cylinder, somewhat like the Heilmann comber, which held the cot-
ton while the cylinder combed the tuft, and directly over the top of the
cylinder there were two piecing rollers which revolved in the piecing seg-
ment after the combing of the tuft, which advanced the tuft combed to
the opposite side of the cylinder, where it was nipped again, and the rear
end of the tuft was combed by the same combing cylinder in the revolu-
tion of the cylinder. This machine was considered a failure, and of those
installed in this country few, if any, are in operation. In 1897 the Whitin
Machine Works, of Whitinsville, Mass., built a comber which was an exact
duplicate of the Heilmann type, and their first machine was installed at the
Paul Whitin Mfg. Co., Northbridge, Mass., and proved so successful that
in 1900 they equipped one department of their works for the manufacture
of this comber, and the first eighteen were built for the New York Mills
at New York Mills, N. Y. This type they continued to build until 1905.
The standard Heilmann comber up to that period was a six-head comber,
running a lap eight and three-quarters wide, with the exception of a few
machines that were built by Piatt Bros., Oldham, England ; John Hether-
ington & Sons, Manchester. England, and Dobson & Barlow, Bolton, Eng-
land, which used a lap of the following widths: eight and three-quarter
inches, ten and one-half inches, twelve inches. These machines were built
in six and eight heads, but were not universally adopted, owing to imper-
fections caused by vibration.
Previous to this, Messrs. Dob.son & Barlow had produced the Double
Nip Comber, which was considered a high-speed comber, the claim being
125 nips per minute instead of eighty to eighty-five, as in the single nip
OF THE UNITED STATES 89
machines. John Hetherington & Sons also secured letters patent on a double
nip comber. A few machines of this type were shipped to New England,
principally those of the Dobson Barlow make; but their defects were such
as to prevent their adoption, the extreme vibration making it impossible to
retain the settings, and in designing the machine two needle segments had
been added to the cylinder, which reduced the combing surface from seven-
teen to thirteen rows or needles.
Next came the Nasmith comber, invented by John Nasmith, of Man-
chester, England. This machine was to some extent of the Alsatian type.
In it the piecing principle was somewhat like the Mumford comber, and it
retained all the best points of the Heilmann, while its defects were elimi-
nated ; it had a maximum speed of ninety-five nips a minute, combing a
medium-weight lap; that is, an increase of about fifty per cent, in weight
of lap over the Heilmann type comber. In 1901-02 a few of these Nasmith
combers were brought into New England mills, and were later taken out
and replaced with an improved Nasmith machine, which, in 1904, were
replaced by the Nasmith Patent Comber, built by John Hetherington &
Sons, Manchester, England, imported by S. C. Low, of Boston. This ma-
chine occupies the same floor space as the Heilmann, and its production is
double that of the latter at the same speed, and it combs without undue
waste all staples from seven-eighths to two inches, making a perfect piecing
with the shortest fibres, and it does fine medium and coarse combing. "In
all combers, except the Nasmith, the piecing consists simply of laying the
tops of one lot of fibres over the tails of the previously detached series,
the overlap being about one-half of an inch on long cottons, and with short
cottons no sliver can be made that will hold together along the table. But
the nature of the piecing in the Nasmith is quite different, there being not
only a long overlap, much exceeding the length of the staple on the short
cottons, but the ends are thoroughly amalgamated by being drawn in while
the overlap is being made. This does away with the serious difficulty of
manipulating the combed slivers at the subsequent operations, and makes
such operations quite normal in character, causing neither excessive waste
nor stoppage."
So successful did this comber prove that, in 1908, 2,000 of them had
been placed upon the market, over 500 of them being in various mills in
America. Meanwhile, the Whitin Machine Company, recognizing the fact
that there was a growing demand for a higher production comber, that
would deal with shorter staples, set themselves to meet it by producing a
comber in which the vibration would be greatly lessened. First they built
an eight-head comber, running an eight and three-quarter lap ; this fell short
of what the manufacturers required, and it was improved to an eight-head
comber, using a ten and a half lap. One hundred and sixty of these last
machines were installed in the Manomet Mill No. i. New Bedford, Mass.,
eighty machines were put in the Kilburn Mills, New Bedford, Mass., and
go TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
loo additional combers were built and placed in small lots in various mills
throughout New England. In the Manomet Mills Texas cotton one and
one-sixteenth staple and seven-eighths cotton were both successfully manipu-
lated.
In the fall of 1904 the experimental force of the Whitin Machine Works
turned their attention once more to the improvement of the Heilmann type
comber, working on the plan of improving the machine by diminishing the
vibration without interfering with the principle of the Heilmann comber,
and six months later they placed upon the market the result of their labors,
the Whitin High Speed Comber, built in eight heads, using a twelve-inch
lap, the machine occupying the same floor space as the eight-head comber
using a ten and one-half inch lap. The new machine had a minimum speed
of 125 nips per minute, and an exactly proportionate production of two
and one-half times that of the standard six-head, eight and three-quarter lap
Heilmann comber, while the quality of the work remained the same. The
arrangement of the feeding, piecing, nipping, combing and detaching opera-
tions is the same as in every Heilmann single-nip comber, the vibration of
the comber being overcome in the following different ways : (1) By elimi-
nating entirely the rocking motion of the nipper frame and fixing it in
the correct position for combing. (2) The lifting mechanism of the top de-
taching rolls is eliminated and the top roll is raised and lowered for piecing
by a bevel on the cylinder shaft segment, this motion being much more
positive as the roll is raised up gradually instead of being dropped. 3. A
tension device is appplied to the brass detaching rolls to prevent skipping.
4. The most important improvement is that the actuating mechanism of the
lower detaching and piecing rolls is designed so as to use two notched
wheels instead of one as heretofore, with their accompanying internal gear.
One of these notched wheels is working through the movement of the actu-
ating cam on the cam shaft, while the other notched wheel is resting, to take
its turn the following nip and so on. Thus, to drive the drawing-off
rolls there are supplied two actuating mechanisms, each one of which runs
at one-half the speed it formerly did with the same number of nips." These,
with some few minor changes, produced a comber which met the require-
ments of the trade, and in 1910 the Whitin Machine Company had built
and put upon the market over 2,500 combers. The Whitin High Speed
Comber is also built in England by Messrs. Howard & Bullough, of Accring-
ton, for use in that country and on the continent. The high quality of the
product is maintained, the loss is minimized and a high grade of yarn from
short staple can be produced at less cost to the manufacturer by this ma-
chine. One of the principal points of interest to the mill owner was the
fact that he was enabled to equip his mill with an adequate combing plant
without excessive cost, owing to the increased production of the machine,
a consideration which was augmented in 1908, when it became necessary
for the manufacturer to employ shorter staple. The Whitin high speed
OF THE UNITED STATES 91
comber also met successfully the necessity for a system of semi-combing
to take the place of double-carding, which had been used to some extent
in New England mills. The double-carding of fibre weakened the stock,
which was considered defective, and of course this placed again before
the manufact!irers a vcr^' interesting proposition, as in the semi-combing of
staple, instead of double carding it the manufacturer was able to use
one-sixteenth shorter staple, which saved from one to three cents per pound
in the cost of his raw stock. The Whitin High Speed Comber also met
the demand of the manufacturer for a machine that would reclaim long
fibres from the waste made by carding and combing in the ordinary fine
mill ; where combing and carding were done in a mill, it would decrease
the waste account from twelve to fifteen per cent.; where carding only was
done, there would be a decrease in the waste account of about three per
cent, and this saving was of vast moment to the manufacturer because of
the high price of staple cottons used in a fine mill and the immense quan-
tity of stock used in a coarse mill.
We now come to the second division of our subject — namely, carding.
The hand card was really more in the nature of a brush having wire in-
stead of bristles. The old hand cards were made of wood and were usually
about one foot long by five inches broad, having a handle about in the
middle, and were covered with card clothing, the latter being composed of
thin leather into which was inserted a great number of short wires about
one-half an inch long; the wires being bent at a point about midway from
the point of their insertion, in order to give them a certain degree of elas-
ticity, while the points were ground to a certain shape, in order that their
purpose might be effected. The process consisted in holding one of the
cards stationery between the knees of the carder, who, after filling it with
as much wool as could be conveniently worked, brought the points of the
other card into contact with those containing the wool ; the second card
being held so that its points were turned in the direction opposite to those
of the wool-filled comb, the operation being continued until the different
lengths of wool fibres were sufficiently opened and mixed, after which the
two cards were held in a vertical position ; they were then operated in a
gentle manner, with the teeth of the two cards all pointing in the same
direction, until the carded wool was made into a roll equal to the length
of each card which was now ready for the spinning wheel ; such was the
modus operandi of hand cards. It is said that stock cards were first ap-
plied to the preparation of cotton in England in 1739.
The first improvement effected in carding consisted in making one of
the two cards a fi.xture and increasing its size so that the carder, having
spread the cotton or wool upon it, might use a card double the size of the
old cards and do twice the amount of work. "The process was further
facilitated by suspending the movable card by a pulley from the ceiling,
with a weight to balance it, so that the workman had only to move the
92 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
card without sustaining its weight." These were called "stock cards" and
were first applied to the manufacture of woolens. John Wyatt spoke of the
carding of cotton with stock cards in 1739. The invention of spinning ma-
chinery now made it necessary to impro\e and facilitate the methods of
preparing the fibres to be spun, a need that was met in part by the applica-
tion of the rotary principle to carding by Lewis Paul, the inventor of roller
spinning. The patent which he took out August 30, 1748, includes two
machines for acccomplishing the s^ame purpose; the one a flat, the other a
cylindrical arrangement of card,> The same specification applies to both :
" The said machine for carding of wool and cotton, etc., does consist and
is to be performed in the manner following, to wit : The card is made up
of a number of parallel cards, with intervening spaces between each, and
the matter being carded thereon is afterwards took off each card separately,
and the several rows or filaments of wool or cotton so took off are con-
nected into one entire roll." Of the two machines the second was the more
important, consisting, as it did, of "a horizontal cylinder, covered in its
whole circumference with parallel rows of cards with intervening spaces,
and turned by a handle." Beneath this cylinder was a concave frame,
hned internally with cards, exactly fitting the lower half of the cyHnder,
so that when the handle was turned the cards of the cylinder and of the
concave frame worked against each other and carded the wool." This un-
doubtedly bears resemblance to the modern carding cylinder, except that
in the modern machine the concave frame is placed over the cylinder instead
of under, as in Paul's machine, which had a contrivance for letting the con-
cave part down by a lever and pulley and turning it round, that the carded
wool might be easily stripped off, which was done "by means of a stick
with needles in it, parallel to one another, like the teeth of a comb." An
ingenious device was introduced for the purpose of forming the cardings
into a perpetual strip; this consisted of a flat, broad ribbon, extended be-
tween two short cylinders, which wound upon one cylinder as it unwound
from the other. The carding being placed on the ribbon, the turning of
one of the cylinders wound the ribbon and carding upon it and thus formed
it into a roll ready for the spiiming machine. Admirable as was this in-
vention, it was defective in several important points ; the cylinder had no
feeder, the cardings were taken off separately by a movable comb, and the
perpetual carding was produced by joining short lengths by the hand as we
have described, where now a comb attached to the cylinder, and constantly
worked against it by a crank, brings it off the machine in a continuous roll.
After the breaking up of Wyatt and Paul's establishment at Northamp-
ton, the machine was brought and set up in Leominster and was applied
to the carding of wool for hats and later on was taken to Wigan, in Lan-
cashire, in 1760, and there applied to cotton, Mr. Peel being one of the
first to adopt it. The first improvement in the carding machine was the
fixing of a perpetual revolving cloth called a feeder, for which improve-
OF THE UNITED STATES 93
ment a patent was taken out by John Lees, a Quaker of Manchester, in 1772.
Arkwright claimed numerous important improvements in this machine later,
many of which were sharply contested by contemporary inventors.
But though many of the improvements were really effected by him,
and though, in some large measure, the perfection of the carding engine
into a complete and beautiful machine which has proved incapable of im-
provements up to the present day was due to him, the leading principles
of it were really due to other and less fortunate inventors. When Ark-
wright took out his patent for carding, he also included in it machines for
drawing and roving. In December, 1775, Mr. Arkwright took out a fur-
ther series of patents for carding, roving and drawing machines, all to be
used "in preparing silk, cotton, flax and wool for spinning."
The first carding machine in use in the United States was built by
Arthur Scholfield, who came from England in 1789 with his brother John
and went to Byfield, near Newburyport, Mass., where they constructed
the first carding machine for wool that was operated in the United States.
Later, Arthur removed to Pittsfield, Mass., where, in 1800-1, he built a
carding machine and set up for himself as a woolen manufacturer, and
also as a builder of carding machinery, as may be seen from an advertise-
ment which appeared in a Pittsfield paper in 1806: "Double-carding ma-
chines, made and sold by A. Scholfield for $253 each, without the cards,
or $4CXD including the cards. Picking machines, $30 each." Carding ma-
chines made by him were set up in Lenox in 1806, and in Williamstown in
the same year, and in Cheshire in 1807. Mr. Scholfield also introduced the
carding machines into Connecticut, New Hampshire and other states.
It is now necessary to give an account of the inventions and improve-
ments during the next century of an industry in which Americans were
from the first pre-eminent — namely, the manufacture of card clothing. As
early as the period of the Revolutionary War there were in existence sev-
eral manufactories for the making of cards. Daniel Anthony had one at
Providence, R. I. The colony of Connecticut, in 1775, granted a loan of
$1,500 to Nathaniel Niles, of Norwich, to enable him to carry on the manu-
facture of fine iron wire for card teeth. Iron at this time being very costly
and hard to procure, Jeremiah Wilkinson, a hand cardmaker of Rhode
Island, set to work to make tacks for clothing by cutting them from sheet
iron with a pair of shears and hammering heads on them with a vice.
One of the earliest inventors of a machine for the manufacture of card
teeth was Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia ; his business was that of making
card teeth by hand, and he contrived an ingenious machine capable of mak-
ing 1,500 teeth a minute; he met with so little encouragement, however, that
he sold his machine and plans to other parties. Other improvements de-
vised by him for pricking the leather and cutting, bending and setting the
teeth he abandoned in discouragement, but they were taken up by others
and formed the basis for subsequent patents.
94 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Giles Richards, who built a factory near Windmill Bridge, Boston, is
supposed to have applied Evans' inventions to machines which he worked
by a windmill. One of these machines tended by one man would cut and
bend the wire for 240 cards in twelve hours. This factory was inspected
by Washington during one of his Eastern tours. There were at that time
900 persons employed in the mill, where they made 63,000 pairs of cards
per annum. President Washington, writing of these machines in 1789, de-
scribes them as "e.xecuting every part of the work in a new and expeditious
manner, especially in cutting and bending teeth, which are done at one
stroke."
The machine of Chittenden, of New Haven, produced about 1784, took
the wire from the coil, cut it into teeth and gave them "the first or double
bend." It made S6,ooo teeth in an hour and was very likely utilized by
Mr. Richards in conjunction with the machine of Evans. Mark Richards,
brother of Giles, was engaged extensively in the making of cards near
Faneuil Hall, Boston, in 1794; there was also a factory operated by Amos
Whittemore which supplied four-fifths of the cards made in the state.
In 1785 Edmond Snow began the making of hand cards at Leicester,
Mass. ; this was the foundation of an industry which later brought com-
mercial prosperity to the town. One of the greatest obstacles with which
Samuel Slater was confronted in 1789 was the difficulty of obtaining suffi-
cient properly made card clothing for his carding machinery. Fortunately
at this juncture he met Phinrey Earle, who, since 1786, had been engaged in
the hand-card business at Leicester, Mass., and engaged him to make the
card clothing for the machines. In order to comprehend the difficulties of
this new and untried experiment, we shall describe the usual method of
making card clothing at that date, in order that we may contrast it with
the requirements of the new venture. A strip of leather was taken, four
inches wide and fifteen to twenty inches long and ruled off into quadri-
lateral sections. "Two holes were made at a time at the intersection of the
lines by a dcuble-needled pricker and the two-pronged staples which had
been previously bent in a machine were inserted into the holes one at a
time by hand. The second bend in the staple then being made, the card
was tacked on a board ready to be used for carding either wool or cotton.
Now for Mr. Slater's cards : strips eighteen by four inches were cut from
sheets of calfskins; one hundred thousand holes were then pricked with
the implement made for that purpose, and the teeth, which had been made
by machinery, were put in by hand. The teeth in these cards were set
diagonally, which suggested to Mr. Earle the invention of a machine for
pricking "twilled" cards, for which he obtained a patent, December 6, 1803.
Mr. Earle at first used calfskin, but later adopted cowhide, which was
especially tanned for the purpose ; still later many other materials were used,
and in a modern and well-equipped card manufactory all kinds of card
clothing are manufactured and used, including oak and hemlock tanned
OF THE UNITED STATES 95
leather, a dozen varieties of rubber-faced card clothing and a dozen or
more varieties of cloth card clothing, and the iron wire teeth set by hand
have been superseded by soft steel wire in about twenty sizes ;' hardened
and tempered steel wire, in a dozen different sizes, as well as tinned wire
and brass wire in dififerent sizes. But we must retrace our steps to speak
of others prominent in the growth of the carding industry. Eleazar Smith,
of Walpole, conceived a machine for making cards that would combine the
operations of bending the teeth and pricking the holes in the leather. Many
of his experiments wer« made under the patronage of Mr. Hale; but, after
1784, he was emploved in the card works of Giles Richards & Company
and remained with them nearly two years, during which time he effected
several improvements in card-setting machinery. He then, under his own
roof, began to work upon his "grand machine to stick cards." Those in-
terested in card clothing visited him from time to time, and in the simplicity
of his heart he explained to them the details of his machine now nearing
completion. "It consisted of an iron bedplate, twenty-four inches square,
with wrought-iron posts for the centre and working parts." He had suc-
ceeded in making it prick the leather, make the teeth and set them in
straight and was about to apply his ideas in putting on the second bend to
the teeth, when he heard of the patent granted to Amos Whittemore in 1797.
The man who had been his most frequent visitor and had followed him in
all the workings out of his machine had forestalled him. A disappointed and
broken-hearted man, he never recovered from the blow.
Mr. Whittemore was a 'jkilled mechanic and possessed of great inven-
tive faculty, and he probably had his own well-laid plans for the perfect-
ing of his own machine, and had he not so constantly visited the workshop
of a rival as skilled as he, but handicapped by poverty, more honor could
have been accorded him for the invention of a machine that was a splendid
specimen of "construction, precision of movement, rapidity of performance
and perfection of execution, it must be studiously examined to be justly
appreciated, and its complicated performance can be compared with nothing
more nearly than the machinery of the human system."
In i8og the patent was renewed by Congress, the vote on the petition
being fifty-five to eighteen. Other inventors have since made valuable im-
provements in card-making machinery ; namely, Elliott, Lamb, Porter, Sar-
gent, Coates, W. B. Earle, Addison and Oliver Arnold, Ballard, Ainsworth,
McFarland, Conklin, Prouty, Woodman, etc.
The most prominent of the American inventions relating to the card-
ing machine itself is that of John Goulding, which marked almost as great
an advance in woolen manufacture as the spinning jenny itself. The Gould-
ing machine was first introduced about 1824. Prior to this invention the
rolls issuing from the carding machines were limited to the breadth of the
card, the ends of the roll being spliced together by hand or by means of
the billy. With the latter Goulding dispensed entirely, and so managed to
96
TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
accomplish with four machines what had formerly been done with five.
His machine afforded an endless roll or roping, and lessened the cost of
production, while increasing the quality and quantity. After 1830 no new
sets of cards were started on the old plan of manufacturing. The forty-
inch cards began to come into use about this time ; in the old carding engines
the width was twenty-four to twenty-six inches, a few being twenty-eight
inches wide. The speed of the machine was also accelerated from seventy-
five revolutions a minute to eighty-five and one hundred. In England the
cylinder cards are preferably used, while in America the flat revolving card
is most in vogue. (See Plate 4.)
OF THE UNITED STATES 97
THE HISTORY OF SPINNING
BY WILLIAM F. DRAPER
Spinning as an art cannot be traced to its earliest conception, as it
dates back of all existing records and traditions. The mummies of Egypt
confront us wrapped in linen of superior texture, and in every nation the
first advance toward civilization began with the use of woven fabrics.
The production of cloth of any kind requires the production of yarn
in advance. Spinning is the art of producing yarn, and consists in methods
of twisting vegetable or animal fibres into a continuous thread. This
invention has been discovered at different times by every intelligent race,
and Columbus, when first landing on American soil, found the natives
clad in cotton cloths.
To-day in difl'erent sections of the world every step in the development
of the now nearly perfect spinning machinery may be found in actual use
— the native Mexican, with her distaff, toiling not many miles distant from
the Rabbeth spindle in a cotton mill. Whether the latter will stay in use
as long as its older rival time alone can determine; but there is no question
but that it has already twisted more yarn, in its thirty years of existence,
than the distaflf in its thousands.
The amount of human labor saved by modern invention in this line
is enormous. The prime necessities of life are food and clothing; and,
although no development of inventions is likely to increase the capacity of
a man's digestive apparatus, the amount of cloth he uses increases with his
purchasing power. This is an industry which affects every class of people.
It furnishes employment for men, women and children, who in turn
consume its product. No other industry can have a greater interest for
the mass of the people, and the development of few others can affect them
to the same extent.
When the spindle was first used is unknown, but the spindle and distaff
are mentioned in the earliest references to mechanical art.
Spinning for many centuries was done by what is known as the distaff,
which was simply a short stick, on one end of which the raw material was
placed, while the other was held under the arm, thus leaving the hands at
liberty, one to draw the material and the other to manage the spindle. The
accompanying spindle was a stick, perhaps a foot in length, having a slit
or catch in the top, and a whirl of wood or metal at its lower end. The
yarn being held by the slit, the spindle, suspended in the air by the yarn.
98 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
was rotated by the right hand to put in the twist, the yarn being wound
upon it as fast as a length was spun.
In 1530, the spinning-wheel was introduced into Europe. It was made
after the spinning-wheel which had been in use in India from immemorial
times. The spinning-wheel about the time of Henry VIII was used in
almost every household in England. Every young woman, whatever her
position in life, was taught to spin with this machine ; hence the origin of
the term "spinster," as applied to an unmarried female. (See Plate 5.)
The spinning-wheel was a horizontal spindle, rotated by a band from
a large hand wheel, the yarn being drawn through the fingers of the
operator, as before.
A hand spinner with a spinning-wheel was said by Mr. Chauncy Smith,
in his "Influence of Inventions on Civilization," to be able to spin a single
thread about four miles long per day, or eight skeins. This I believe to be a
very high estimate; but, assuming its truth and calling a day twelve hours,
each spindle in a Rabbeth frame on 30's yarn would spin about the
same amount, and, if the yarn were coarser, more. And so spin six
times that amount at a cost of one and one-tenth cents per week for labor.
Even the Hindoo spinner, at five cents a day, would make the labor cost
thirty times as much with the spinning-wheel as it costs in one of our
modern frames at the rate of wages paid in American factories. One
spinner, tending a thousand spindles, does the work of more than a thousand
spinners with the old-fashioned spinning-wheels not much more than a
century ago.
Early in the eighteenth century experiments looking towards a more
rapid production of yarn began to be frequent, the first practical invention
for this purpose being a roller spinning machine, made by John Wyatt
and patented by his partner, Lewis Paul, in 1738, the principles of this
machine being embodied in Arkwright's patent of 1769.
In 1767, James Hargraves invented the spinning jenny, which v/as
practically the application of the spinning-wheel principle to a number of
spindles, together with a reciprocating motion of the spindles to and f'-om
the point where the material is delivered, as in the mules of the present
day. The spinning, as in the nnde of today, was intermittent, rather than
continuous. (See Plate 5.)
In 1760, Richard Arkwright invented the first continuous power spin-
ning machine, which was intended, as stated in his specification, "to re-
ceive its motion from a horse." This was a flyer structure, on the
general principle which continued in use for nearly a hundred years, It
is in use to-day to a limited and constantly diminishing extent.
These machines were received with great disfavor by the people,
who thought they saw their occupation gone if one spinner could do the
work of a large number; and at one time preconcerted mobs broke up all
the spinning machines in Leicester having more than twenty spindles each.
PLATE V— Spinning
1. Early Method.
2. From 14th Century M. S.
3. Roman Spinning.
4. Then and Now.
5. Slater's First Spinning Frame. (Now
m the National Museum, Washington,
D. C).
6. Spindle.
7. hiand Mule Spinning.
8. Power Mule Spinning.
9. Ring Spinning.
'JAMES H LAME CO-
OF THE UNITED STATES 99
No more absorb illustration could be given of the foolishness of the op-
position of labor organizations to labor-saving improvements. The demanil
for labor has probably been as much increased by the invention of the
"spinning jenny" as the cost of cloth has been diminished by it.
The Arkwright machine was called the "water frame," from the fact
that, although the first ones were driven by horse-power, it was later on
driven by water-power. This machine was gradually perfected, and became
known as the "throstle" or "flyer frame." It underwent various modifica-
tions, and became the standard machine for spininng warp all over the
world.
In this machine the sliver, passing from the drawing rolls to the
bobbin, passed around the arm of a flyer, which was revolved some three
or four thousand times a minute, thus giving twist to the yarn. The
bobbin received motion from the flyer through the yarn, and had a speed
equal to that of the flyer, less the number of revolutions required to wind
the spun yarn upon the bobbin. Inasmuch as the system of spinning with
a flyer had been used with a form of hand wheel known as the '^Saxony
spinning-wheel," that does not constitute the chief element of Arkwright's
invention, but the system of drawing the fibre by rolls driven at different
speeds, which is the universal custom at the present day.
Two kinds of flyer frames were in general use — the live spindle-flyer
and the dead spindle-flyer. The live spindle-flyer moved with the spindle,
and the bobbin rested upon a drag carried by the traverse or copping rail.
The dead spindle-flyer, an American invention, took its upper bearing in
a plate above the spindles, and its lower bearing upon the dead spindle
itself. The bobbin rested on a washer on the deah spindle, and revolved
with it. The principle of spinning was the same. The yarn was wound
upon the bobbin by the falling behind of the latter in speed, as compared
to the speed of the flyer.
The flyer frame made strong and satisfactory yarn ; but, owing to the
rapid revolutions of the flyers through the air, a great deal of power was
consumed, and the speed was limited to about 4,000 turns per minute,
owing to the tendency of the flyers to spread. The dead spindle-flyer was
the one most extensively adopted in this country.
In the year 1779, Samuel Crompton, of Lancashire, England, invented
the spinning mule. His first machine contained only forty-eight spindles.
The principal feature of his invention was the movable carriage, by
means of which the action of the left arm and finger and thumb of the
spinner on the ordinary spinning-wheel, were reproduced. (See sketch of
Samuel Crompton, Ibid.)
In the year 1828 the first patent that I find on a ring-spinning frame
was issued to Mr. John Thorpe, of Providence, R. I. A few years later,
patents on ring frames were issued to Mr. Samuel Brooks, of Baltimore,
Maryland, and to Mr. George H. Dodge, of Attleboro. Massachusetts
100 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Evan Leigh, in Ins "Modern Cotton Spinning:,"' says that ring spinning
was 5aid to have been invented by Mr. Jencks, of Tawtucket, Rhode Island.
There seems to be no certainty on this point ; but whoever the inventor was,
he certainly has conferred a great benefit upon the human race. (See
Plate 5.)
In the ring spinning frame the flyer is dispensed with, and the bobbin
is carried with the spindle, and at the same speed. On the traverse rail is
fastened a flanged ring, which is made as hard and as smooth and as
nearly round as possible. On this ring is sprung a small piece of steel
wire, bent in a half circular form, with the ends turned in, called a "travel-
ler." The yarn, in going from the rolls to the bobbin, passes through this
traveller; and the drag, or winding on, is obtained by the falling behind of
the traveller in speed, as compared with the speed of the spindle and the bob-
bin. Different travellers are used for different sizes of yarn, and the yarn
may be wound more or less compactly upon the bobbin by varying the weight
of this traveller, and thus increasing the drag and the friction on the ring.
The ring and traveller have a reciprocal vertical motion, and wind the
yarn as fast as it is spun in layers upon the bobbin.. The revolution of
the spindle gives motion to the thread attached to the bobbin, and through
that to the traveller.
The speed of the spindle and bobbin are greater than the speed of the
traveller by the number of times that the yarn is wound around the bobbin.
The amoi-int of twist i-i the yarn is equal to the number of revolutions of
the traveller while a given length is being spun.
By doing away with the flyer, the power require 1 to drive the machine
was greatly reduced and the speed increased, so that the frame as a whole
was much more effective. It was rapidly introduced in America, until in
i860 the larger number of spinning frames in use were ring frames. The
flyer as still largely run on coarse work, and some mills were equipped
with the Danforth or cap frames.
Manufacturers were divided in preference between what was known
as a positive drive spindle, which carried a loosely fitted bobbin by a pin,
and the spindle with taper blade, which carried the bobbin by frictional
contact. Each form had its advantages; but the tapering spindle, carrying
the bobbin by frictional contact, became, ten years later, the standard
structure.
At this time the ordinary weight of the spindle varied from twelve to
sixteen ounces, and the most rapid speed was 5,000 revolutions per minute.
At this speed from seventy to a hundred spindles were ordinarily run
by one horse-power. (See Plate 5.)
During these ten years successful efforts were made by various
builders, particularly by Mr. John C. Whitin, of the Whitin Machine
Works, and Messrs. Fales & Jenks, of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to
reduce the weight of the spindle, and consequently the power required to
OF THE UNITED STATES lor
drive it. The spindles were reduced in weight to eight, and in a few cases
even to six, ounces, with some saving of power ; but the speed could not be
increased, as the lighter spindles sprung in rapid revolution more tlian the
heavier ones before used, and were more likely to throw ofif bobbins in
spinning. The twelve-ounce common spindle was the best of that type for
durability and steadiness of running.
In 1871, an invention in spindles was patented by Mr. Jacob H. Sawyer,
then agent of the Appleton Mills, at Lowell, which entirely revolutionized
spinning, and was one of the most important inventions of the time.
He conceived the idea of chambering out the bottom of the bobbin,
and carrying the bolster up inside, thus supporting the load which the
spindle had to carry near its centre. This change in support of the spindle
enabled it to be greatly reduced both in weight and diameter of bearings,
and the saving in power was enormous. The steadiness of running was
also materially increased by the location of the upper bearing, and this
enabled the speed of rotation to be increased also.
As the speed which the spindle would bear was at this time the limit
of the production of the frame, an increase in capacity for speed in the
spindle meant a corresponding increase in the production of the machine.
While with the common ring spindle the speed was usually about 5,500
turns a minute, with the Sawyer spindle it was raised to 7,500
turns per minute. At the same time a horse-power would drive about 175
Sawyer spindles at the higher speed, while it would drive only about one
hundred common spindles at the lower speed.
This increase in production and saving in power, together with many
other incidental advantages, caused the very rapid introduction of these
machines. Over 3,000,000 were sold in the ten years succeeding their
invention, when this spindle was superseded by one of even greater capacity.
During these ten years, the Sawyer spindle underwent considerable
modification and improvement. Mr. George Draper, and others connected
with him, corrected the faults one by one, until the Sawyer spindle in the
latter years of its extensive sale seemed to have reached mechanical per-
fection. It was far better calculated for rapid revolution than any spin-
ning structure ever before made, though not equal to the various forms
of the Rabbeth spindle now in general use.
In the year 1878, after long experimenting, Mr. Francis J. Rabbeth
placed on trial his so-called "top" or "self-centring" spindle in the shop of
Messrs. Fales & Jenks, of Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
The particular features of this so-called "top" spindle were : First, the
sleeve whirl ; second, a loose bolster, supported in a tube which held both
bolster and step bearings, and formed an oil reservoir to lubricate them ;
third, the elastic packing, ordinarily composed of woolen yarn, which
surrounded this bolster, shown in the cut at D ; fourth, the flat top step, on,
rather than in, which the rounded bottom of the spindle moved with the
102 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
bolster: fifth, the snout oil chamber, wliich ensures a better supply of oil,
and keeps the reserve at a higher level than any other form yet tested.
The spindle was called the "top" or "self-centring" spindle, on the
theory that the spindle acted like a top, and found its centre of rotation
under an unbalanced load. This theory has since been discarded by experts,
it now being thought that the advantages of the Rabbeth spindle are
derived, first, from the cushioning effect of the loose bearing; and second,
from the additional cushioning effect of the packing interposed between
the bolster bearing and the surrounding case, both taken in connection with
a sleeve whirl surrounding the tube containing the bearings. The spindle
does not centre itself, but runs out of centre with less jar and vibration
and heat, and thus is enabled to bear a greatly increased speed, and to
run with less power.
Various modifications of the Rabbeth spindle have gone into extensive
use — the Whitin, the McMuUan and the Sherman being the principal
varieties. The great difference between them and the Rabbeth lies in the
elimination of the packing and the positive restraint of the bolster from
turning. The Rabbeth spindle, in a modified form named the "Draper,"
from the author of this article, is one in largest use to-day.
The gain to the community from the development of spinning since
the day of the distaff is so great as to seem impossible.
Twenty-five million of the various types of the Rabbeth spindle have
been sold in this country, and must be substantially all in use. Allowing a
spinner to a thousand spindles, there are twenty-five thousand spinners
employed in running these spiiidles to-day. To spin the same amount of
yarn on spinning-wheels, which are a step ahead from the distaff, would
require the labor of more than twenty-five million spinners, or probably
one-third of all the men, women and children in the country, three hundred
days each year. In fact, it is doubtful if our entire working population,
outside of those engaged in the production of food, could provide our
present consumption of yarns with the tools of one hundred and fifty years
ago. The same comparisons could be made abroad with similar results in
all the machine-using countries, but I have not room to enlarge.
I will, however, make a brief calculation of the value to this country
of the spindle inventions adopted since the year 1870, — calling the speed
of the then common spindle five thousand, — a high average, — and that of
the Rabbeth, nine thousand, though many of them are run more rapidly.
The production per spindle has increased more than the increase in speed,
but I will base my figures on the difference in that factor alone.
Twenty-five million Rabbeth spindles will produce as much yam as
forty-five million of the spindles of 1870. It follows, therefore, that had
the improved spindles not been introduced, twenty million more common
spindles would have been required to produce the yarn now spun in this
country. The cost of spinning frames to-day, including floor space occu-
OF THE UNITED STATES 103
pied and plant for shafting, heating, Hghting, belting, etc., would not be
less than $4.50 per spindle. At this figure, therefore, the saving in plant
has been $90,000,000.
Further, the old spindles, at 5,000 turns, required as much power as
the latest Rabbeth at 9,000, so that the power required to drive 20,000,000
spindles has been saved. At one hundred spindles to the horse-power this
would amount to 200,000 horse-power, which, at $20 per horse-power —
a very low estimate — would make a saving of $4,000,000 each year.
Again, owing to the better running of these spindles, they require
no more attention at the high speed than the common spindles at the low
speed. The labor cost for spinning, including all employees from the
spinner to the overseer, is not less than sixty cents per spindle per annum.
The labor cost saved yearly, therefore, is $12,000,000.
Capitalizing these gains at ten times the yearly saving, and omitting
minor advantages, the annual gain to the community from spindle improve-
ments introduced since 1879 '^ shown by the following figures:
Saving of Machinery $90,000,000
Saving of Power 40,000,000
Saving of Labor 120,000,000
Total $250,000,000
And this is the saving in this country alone on the machinery now in use.
The tendency of the United States is to use ring rather than mule
spindles, which are used only for those classes of yarn w^hich cannot be
produced by ring spindles. The number of active ring spindles in the
United States for 1910 was 24,192,359 ring and 4,996,586 mule spindles.
In the United Kingdom the ratio is inverted, and only about twenty per
cent of the total number are ring spindles.
104 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
YARN AND THREAD WINDING
BY F. H. BISHOP
Before the beginning of history, when the primitive man or woman
drew out the fibres of wool, or goat hair, and twisted them between the
fingers and first made a cord, the necessity of forming some kind of a
package could have resulted only in three generally different characters
of bundles or packages. Naturally the first disposition of the material was
to fold it in coils, forming what is now termed a "hank." Later, collecting
the first short coils into a mass and then winding thereon in different
directions a ball would have been formed, and in process of time some
more daring innovator than his fellows bethought himself of a rigid
core upon which to wind the material, taking a stick and laying the yarn
coil after coil, spool fashion, or else in the manner called ball fashion.
It was undoubtedly much later in the development of the art that a
considerable advance was made which consisted in laying the yarn in
successive coils one above the other, so as to build up a generally sym-
metrical mass with flat ends, and, so far as we have any evidence upon this
point, this was only done as late as the time of the later Fiji Islanders, who,
after an indiscriminate winding of the cords into a cylinder, finally disposed
it with the outer coils alternating cross-wise, forming an ornamental ex-
terior which corresponded to the single ornamental layer of cross-coiled
strands which they laid upon their oars and spears to secure a better hand
grasp thereon.
With the introduction of machines for winding threads, yarns, ropes
and cords, the coils of different kinds were laid more regularly, yet it is
a surprising fact that so far as the structure of the packages themselves
were concerned there was practically no radical departure fiom the pre-
historic methods of building the packages until within the past fifteen years.
While the structure of the modern packages has thus assimilated
those of prehistoric times, the advance in the character of machines for
winding was for a time rapid, and resulted in such modifications of the
forms of the packages as were embodied in spooling, in the products of
spinning machines, and in warp windings for looms, etc.
The machines which were developed for these purposes may be divided
generally into four classes — that is, reels, spooling machines (including
those which would wind cops for spindles), baling machines, and those
which, for distinction, are now termed "warp winding machines," which.
OF THE UNITED STATES 105
however, frequently include what might more properly be termed "spooling
machines," but which are more properly confined to that class of machines
which lay the thread in cross winds or reverse coils, building up a generally
cylindrical package with substantially flat ends.
The reels of the present day have all the general characteristics of those
made first, and while the ancillary details of the spooling mechanisms have
gradually improved until a modern thread spooler possesses almost a
mechanical brain, yet the same elemental devices pertain to all of the
spooling structures so far as the mere deposit of thread in the building up
of the cop is concerned. It is in the apparatus for balling and for cross-
winding, or building up cops without the use of spools, that the greatest
structural changes have taken place and that the greatest advance has been
made.
While a great number of inventors have contributed to the general
advance in the art, the larger portion have followed along fundamentally
accepted lines, each adding his quota of improvements, but the result has
been that by far the larger portion of such improvements have related to
minor structural details, and a reference to comparatively few of the
earlier structures is sufficient to illustrate t!ie more prominent features of
departure from the earlier existing forms.
Practically all of the improvements that have been made in these
different classes of packages and machines for making the same have
been embodied in letters patent, more generally in Great Britain and the
United States, and a fair understanding of the development and progress
in the art can well be had from an investigation of a few of the more
prominent patents relating to the respective classes. In view of the fact
that, so far as reels are concerned, there is no substantial difference
between those of the earliest and those of the latest forms, it is not
necessary for us to give this matter special consideration, but the remaining
three classes are detailed below :
Balling Machines. — While many of the machines which deposit the
thread or yarn upon spools, and sometimes so as to form cylindrical pack-
ages, are recognized as coming technically under the term "balling machines,"
we consider that properly this class of machines embodies only those where
the thread or yarn is crossed at different angles and built up upon a grad-
ually expanding core .so as to form an approximately spherical package.
The general characteristic of balling machines has been an inclined
spindle, and a yarn carrier rotating about the spindle in plane at an angle
of the axis thereof, which axis is changed from time to time, so that the
cord is carried practically in circles about a changing axis.
One of the first illustrations of such a construction is in Young's
British patent 12,353, of 1849, which shows a scries of inclined spindles,
the cord carried by flyers and the spindles carried by a swinging frame. A
similar construction is shown in later patents.
io6 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
In United States patent to Billings 165,978 the parts are so driven
that the inner layers of the ball are wound with considerable intervals
between them, the outer layers being laid in close proximity, thus securing
an elastic package.
In Mitchell's United States patent 408,842 is described a ball which
is wound with a regulated proportion between the speed of the spindle
and that of the guide. By this means an irregular honeycomb spherical
structure is secured, and, so far as we are aware, this is the first attempt in
connection with any kind of winding to secure a symmetrical disposition of
the coils throughout the entire body of the package. As a result of the
timing of the parts, however, the package varies in character from the
centre outward.
In ^Mitchell's United States patent 408,842 is described a ball which
is bviilt up by first winding a short rounded body portion upon the spindle,
the coils being laid in circles crosswise and gradually increasing the length
and diameter of successive layers. An attempt was made in this case to
secure a structure in which one layer was deposited upon and practically
covered the other, but it is evident from the reading of the specification
that no such result could be secured by the method described.
In Hetzel's United States patent 501,186 the cord is laid by a flyer
upon a rotating spindle in circles at an angle to the spindle, first in one
direction and then in another with the object of building up a nearly
cylindrical ball.
Such cylindrical balls have now became known through the use of
such apparatus as is described in the aforesaid patent and that of Good,
730,635, but are distinguished from warp-winding cylinders in that the
cord is laid in circles including and passing around the ends of the package,
especially at the surface, although there are many varieties and modifica-
tions. Practically all that is done at the present day in connection with this
class of winding diflfers but little except in details of mechanism from the
structures in use at the beginning of the last century.
There is one class of wind which differs in a degree from either the
ball wind or the warp wind, and that is a wind laid by carrying the yarn
in circles first in one direction and then in another, crossing the yarn upon
a card or substantially flat holder. This character of winding was made by
hand for many years, and was especially common in packages of different
kinds made in Germany. One of the first illustrations of this mode of
winding is in Spach's British patent 14,343, of 1885. The machine had
a vertical rotating shaft which supported an inclined rotating spindle, with
a stationary guide in a fixed position at one side. This machine is notice-
able from the effort that was made to secure a particular progressive
relation of movement between the rotation of the spindle carrying the
card and the vertical rotating shaft carrying said spindle, with the view
of attaining a somewhat symmetrical character of wind. An apparatus for
OF THE UNITED STATES 107
a similar cliaracter of flat wind was patented by Hargreave, in United
States Letters Patent 245,373. In this a rotating spindle carried the flat
card and the guide was at the end of a rod, which reciprocated in a block
supported by trunnions, which also permitted the rod to vibrate so that
the guide end travelled in an approximate circle, the guide being movable
upon the rod so as to progressively travel from the package. The result
was the cross-wound package upon a flat card similar to the Spachs'
structure.
A subsequent patent to Spach, No. 15,385, of 1885, showed a similar
support for a bobbin or tube upon which the flyer deposited the yarn in
cross coils.
Another character of wind which was not a warp wind, and only approx-
imately a bail wind, and intended especially for use for the bobbins of
sewing machines, was quite extensively wound, beginning about 1890, at the
Willimantic I,inen Company's Mills in Connecticut, and which is also
illustrated in British patent to Lawson, 1,003, of 1862. This wind was built
up by a reciprocating guide opposite a rotating spindle and the mechanism
was so timed that the thread was laid first in a ring midway between the
ends of the tube upon the spindle and as the cop increased in size the
width of the mass of material gradually increased until it was of the
length of the finished cop, the surface longitudinally being almost semi-
circular, and then gradually flattened until the package finally produced
was cylindrical. In this cop each coil at the surface portion extended in
a circle from one corner of the cop diagonally to the opposite corner, the
outer layer being at a reverse angle to .the under layer.
Warp Wind. — A warp wind a^ applied to a cop upon a tube or f|uill may
be said to embody generally the laying of the thread or yarn helically first in
one direction and then in another through the medium of a rotating spindle
or holder carrying the cop tube and a reciprocating guide.
In the earliest machines that were used for this purpose the spindle
supporting the cop tube was positively driven at a uniform speed and the
guide reciprocated at a uniform speed, building up what might be termed
a cross-wound cop, and sometimes the guide was operated so that the
cop would have substantially flat ends, or at others the extent of recipro-
cation of the guide would be reduced to impart conical ends to the cop,
and at others the guide would be reciprocated opposite the conical base
of a cop tube and gradually moved forward longitudinally so as to build
up the cop lengthwise. All these different modes of operation were set
forth at an early date in the Willis British patent 14,151, of 1852.
In the Smith & Rowclifl' British patent .3.585, of 1861, the spindle was
positively driven and the guide reciprocated, but carried a multiple of
threads and the package was built up upon a spool.
In Combe's British patent 1,241, of 1867, a cross-wound cop was built
up by the reciprocation of a guide opposite a rotating vertical spindle. This
io8 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
guide was at the end of a pivoted arm swinging at one side of the cop,
and the spindle, instead of having a given number of rotations to each
reciprocation of the guide, had a varying speed, so that its rotation was
diminished as the cop was built ; the result of the course being that the
cop varied in character from the centre to the exterior.
An illustration of common form is in Rosskothen's United States
patent 400,118, which particularly describes a cop built up in the irregular
cross-wind manner, the number of turns in the helix laid upon the core
diminishing as the size of the cop increases.
In the first machines the cop spindles were directly, and positively
driven, but a friction drive was subsequently employed. As shown in
Harter's British patent 6,976, of 1836, the end of the spool or spindle rests
on a driving disk and is rotated thereby and this arrangement is to be found
in later patents. Soon, however, it seemed to have been considered prefer-
able to drive the package itself, instead of its spindle, thereby enabling
each spindle to operate independently, the packages resting upon rotating
rolls or drums and the spindles upon which they were wound sliding
vertically or radially in respect to the driving shaft or drum in parallel side
grooves. As early as 1770, Crawford in his British patent 974 describes
a series of drum-driven bobbins on each of which the yarn is laid, all of
the guides carried by a reciprocating bar. In Cheatham's British patent
596, of 1869, there is described a balling machine, but it also shows a
guide reciprocated by a heart cam, and a spindle driven by a drum on which
the spindle lies building up an open cross-wind package with flat ends.
United States patent to Hanson, No. 353,745, subsequently issued,
shows substantially the same mode of winding, the spindle being carried
by a frame pivoted at one side, so that the spindle could rest upon
the face of the driving drum.
United States patent to Ashworth, 285,203, also shows a common
character of apparatus extensively used where the spindles are guided
between vertical guides so as to rest directly on the driving shaft, and the
guides opposite the several spindles are carried by a reciprocating bar,
producing a cross-wind.
We might refer to various other drum-driven apparatus, as for
instance Hill & Brown's in British patent 5,532, of 1883; Knowles' British
patent 10,065, of 1888; and Foster's United States patent 459,039.
The cops thus built have not always been cylindrical, for by the use
of a conical holder resting upon a drum and adapted to swing away from
the latter a conical cross-wound cop may be built up, an illustration of
this being in Broadbent's United States patent 493,970.
A somewhat peculiar package and apparatus is set forth in Miller's
United States patent 443,103, where there is a rotating spindle and a
reciprocating guide, which, however, has also a progressive movement
longitudinally of the spindle and gradual increases in extent of reciproca-
OF THE UNITED STATES 109
tion, the result being that the cord is wound between heads upon the
spindle in a series of conical spool-wound layers, gradually increasing in
length until the diameter of the cop is attained, and then progressively
laid of the same length until the requisite length is attained, after which
the length of the layers is gradually reduced, so that the final result is a
cylindrical spool -wound package in whicli the layers coincide with cones
instead of cylinders.
The above epitome is far from being exhaustive, or even full, and
only in a fragmentary way sets forth some of the main differences between
modes of winding and machines prior to the year 1900.
About that date Mr. Simon W. Wardwell produced a package and used
a method of operation and apparatus involving practically a new principle
of construction in the building up of cops. This principle consisted in a
predetermined fixing of the position of every coil to be laid in the cop,
and in laying each coil positively and with certainty in its place, and form-
ing a cop consisting of a succession of cylindrical layers, each layer
consisting of crossed helices with the coils side by side and the same in
number in each layer. In the prior art practically all of the cops or
packages had been built up either from a central short core, gradually
increasing in length as the cop increased in size, or from successive cross
coils of uniform length laid indiscriminately, sometimes more regularly
than at others, with the disadvantage that the pressure of the outer coils
resulted in indenting and creasing the yarn ; the packages were lacking in
solidity and uniformitiy; the yarn would not deliver uniformly, but one
coil would catch upon another as the yarn was drawn off, and with other
defects well known to those skilled in the art, and the Wardwell wind was
soon recognized as embodying very substantial and radical improvements
over all that preceded it. In the Wardwell cop the yarn or thread is laid
to all intents and purposes as compactly as in a spool wind, but without
the necessity of using heads upon the bobbins. Each layer is so smooth and
solid that there is no indent of the yarn or thread of the subsequent layers,
and the delivery, which can take place from the end of the cop, results
without any retardation or catch of one coil upon another, and is as free
in this respect in the first layer inside the cop as it is in the outer layer.
The original character of the Wardwell cop can be understood from the
claim which was allowed by the Patent Office upon a reissue of the
Wardwell patent (necessitated from a too vague description in the original
patent) which was granted only after a most searching investigation, and
after the production by parties in litigation of everything that could be
set up against the Wardwell method of winding. The said claim is as
follows :
"The within described systematic method of cop-building, consisting,
first, in definitely placing thread upon a holder in a helix extending
irom end to end, in the position on said holder it is to occupy in the
no TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
finished cop; second, in bending the thread at each end to form an abrupt
bend which occupies a position circnmferentially beyond that at the opposite
end ; third, returning the thread in a reverse heHx to the opposite end and
crossing and tying down tlie thread of the first hehx at one or more points
between the ends of the cop; fourth, carrying the thread, at each end, with
an abrupt bend over the portion previously laid at a point circumferentially
different from that at which the helix started at that end; fifth, continuing
these operations to lay the helices in contact with each other progressively
on the core until the core is uniformly covered, forming a single layer
of two thicknesses of thread consisting of crossed helices ; sixth, building
successive layers upon the first, all having the same number of turns in
the helices as the first, thereby forming a cop of the desired length
and diameter, consisting of superposed similar layers of thread, each
layer uniformly covering the layer below, and each composed of series of
superposed crossed helices, each extending from end to end of the cop,
the helices successively bent back at the ends at different points circum-
ferentially, substantially as described."
The Wardwell fundamental method of winding has been embodied
not only in cylindrical cops but in tapering cops and in cops of the
character used for shuttles of looms, where the coils are conical and lay
one forward of the other.
The various forms and styles of cops in which the invention of Mr.
Wardwell has been embodied have necessitated very many modifications
of the forms and arrangements of his winding apparatus which has been
brought to a most perfected state and which constitute the subjects of a
large number of Letters Patents.
The essential characteristic, however, of all of the apparatus is that
in addition to the reciprocating guide eye, which is always maintained in
contact with the point where the thread is to be laid on the rotating
spindle or mass, means are provided whereby there is added to the
movements requisite to laying a helix of any determined number of coils
such a precise, definite and calculated additional movement as will insure
that each coil shall be laid in place parallel and alongside of an adjacent
coil. All parts of the apparatus work with the utmost precision. There is
no factor of chance of accident in the lay of the coils of thread or yarn,
which cannot be said of any other system of winding except in the ordinary
spooling, and each rotation of the thread or yarn is laid positively and
fixidly in the groove it is to occupy in the completed cop.
Spool Machines. — These machines may be placed in two groups : The
first including the various types of machines by which the yarn is wound in
substantially concentric coils on .spools having flanges at right angle with the
cylinders.
In this type of machine, which is in general use in cotton mills for
transfer purposes, the yarn guide moves slowly from end to end of the spool.
PLATE VI— Winding
1. liiiiun Wuiiling.
2. Primitive Method of Winding.
3. Primary Winding Illustrating
"Universal'' Principle.
4. Primary Winding Showing Accuracy
of Adjustment,
the 5. Multiple Yarn Winding for Wire
Insulating.
6. First Universal Machine.
7. Conical Package of Knitting Yarn.
8. Twine Package for Shipment.
9. Quill for Narrow Loom Shuttle.
10. Bobbin for Broad Loom Shuttle.
JAMES H LAMB ^a.
OF THE UNITED STATES iii
SO timed with reference to tlie rotation of the spool that the coils of yarn
lie approximately side by side, the flanges being relied upon to prevent them
from falling over the end. This type of machine is very simple in con-
struction and, although manufactured in many forms of structure, has not
been improved radically in principle since its earliest introduction into cot-
ton mills.
When adapted for winding from skeins, the spool is generally driven
inductively so that any e.xcess pull on the yarn from tangling of skein will
stop the rotation of the spool, and thus avoid breakage of the yarn.
In winding several yarns on one spool, to be used as supply for a twister,
each yarn passes through its individual guide to the spool with a drop wire,
which stops the spindle when the end of the yarn runs out or when the
yarn breaks.
The Eo)'d spooler was the earliest adaptation for this purpose, and in
this structure the cylinder of the spool rested upon the rotation drum ex-
tending between the flanges ; this system of friction driving giving a regu-
lar and constant speed to the yarn when being drawn on to the spool as the
rotation of the spool decreased in speed as the mass of yarn was built upon
it. Several other machines have since been built upon this principle which
are in general use.
The Combe's Patent was probably the first attempt made to secure a
self-supporting package in the form of a cylinder with flat ends, the change
from the previous construction being that of reducing the rotation of the
driven spindle in proportion to the growth of the cop. The transition from
this structure to that of the friction drum was natural. The practical in-
troduction of what is termed "drum-winding" dates from about this time,
and was embodied in a variety of machines, varying somewhat in structure,
but all built upon the same principle; that is, the rotation of a drum upon
which the cop rested, the drum and thread guide being driven at a regular
speed the cop rotating slower and slower as it increased in diameter, con--
stantly changing the ratio of coils on the surface. At certain intervals,
when the ratio of rotation of the cop to the guide was regular, such as two,
three or four to one, there would appear on the surface oi the cop cross-
ings of the yarn, which, as they approached the exact ratio, would lie closer
and closer, and having passed the given point would expand, thus giving
the appearance termed ribbon wind, the cop at these points being packed
closer, and the friction being applied in contact with the ribbon instead of
being distributed over the whole surface of the cop would, in some classes
of material, produce injurious results. In later types of friction or drum
machines special mechanism has been introduced to overcome this defect,
and by constantly changing the ratio produced a more uniform distribution
of the coils.
Previous to Hill & Brown's Patent the friction or drum type of ma-
chine was constructed with the thread guide some distance from the sur-
112
TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
face of the cop and reciprocated by special mechanism. The Hill & Brown
invention departed from this structure and introduced an angular slot in
the drum, extending from N to M, through which the yarn was threaded,
thus operating as a cam to force the yarn from end to end of the traverse
at each evolution of the drum. Machines constructed upon this principle
have been widely used in mill practice, as a much higher yarn speed was
secured than by structures using the reciprocating guide. Their use has
been largely confined to Great Britain and the continent of Europe, as the
mill requirements in the United States are such that the machines have not
met with a ready introduction here.
OF THE UNITED STATES 113
THE HISTORY OF WEAVING.
The art by which threads or yarns of any substance are interlaced so
as to form a continuous web is perhaps the most ancient of the manufactur-
ing arts, since clothing must always have been a primal necessity to man.
A knowledge of weaving seems to have been inherent to a slight extent in
all races, and to have developed as they emerged from savagery, beginning
with the plaiting of rushes or other fibrous materials into mats and aprons,
followed by rudely woven cloths. A piece of flaxen cloth, plaited rather
than woven, was found in the lake dwellings of Switzerland, which is sup-
posed to have been made by prehistoric man in the Stone Age; and in
various ethnographical museums may be found specimens of the handiwork
of peoples who lived in those portions of the globe which were unexplored
a few centuries ago, and which were quite unknown to the ancients. Nearly
all these races when first visited by civilized man had more or less knowl-
edge of weaving and spinning, mat-making, plaiting and net-making. For
any advance in these arts beyond the most rudimentary knowledge. Western
peoples are wholly indebted to the ancient civilizations of the East, where it
had passed to a rare excellence in the most primitive times, thousands of
years before the inhabitants of Europe and of Britain had so far emerged
from savagery as to clothe themselves in the skins of wild animals, or to
dye and stain their bodies with the juices of plants, in default of other cov-
ering.
We find allusions to the loom and its product in the most hoary records
of antiquity. In the early part of the nineteenth century certain inscrip-
tions were discovered near Adon, on the coast of Hadramant (Arabia)
which the scientists declare take us back to the time of Jacob, about five
hundred years after the flood, and about 2,655 years B. C. These records
are said to restore to the world its earliest written language, and were first
deciphered by the Rev. C. Forster, of Great Britain. In the longest inscrip-
tion, which consists of ten lines engraved on a smooth rock, forming one
side of the terrace at Hisn Ghorab, is this sentence: "We walked with slow,
proud gait, in needle-worked, many-colored silk vestments, in whole silks,
in grass-green chequered, and damask robes — woven on the loom."
The honor of inventing the arts of weaving and spinning was ascribed
by the ancients to divers personages who existed in the age of myth and
fable, which would seem to indicate that from immemorial times they had
been practised by the women of the different nations. Thus the Egyptians
credit Isis ; the Assyrians, Scmiramis, their queen ; the Greeks, Minerva ;
114 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
the Mohammedans, a son of Japhet; the Chinese, their Emperor Yao, and
the Peruvians, Mama Oella, wife of Manco Capac. Tradition also ascribes
it to Naamah, sister of Tubal-Cain. The simplest and earliest form of weav-
ing was thus accomplished : A number of parallel threads, called the
warp, were attached to a horizontal beam and drawn taut by weights at-
tached to their lower ends. In the early Greek loom, each warp thread had a
separate weight. The threads of the warp were interlaced at right angles
to those of the weft, and the combination of the two formed the web. The
threads of the weft were wound round a bobbin made to revolve inside a hol-
low boat-shaped case of wood, pointed at both ends to facilitate its easy
passage between the threads of the warp, the thread passing out through a
hole in the side of this primitive shuttle; a reed divided the warp into two
sets called leaves, the first one and then the other of the leaves were pulled
forward and a plain, interlaced web was woven. Later, two shuttles were
introduced, containing threads of different color, and striped or checked
cloth was produced. In wall paintings brought from Thebes, which date
from 1600 B. C, upright looms, similar to the one just described, are de-
picted as they are in earlier ones from Beni Hassan. A strikingly similar
loom is represented on a Greek vase of the fifth century B. C., with a
picture of Penelope and Telemachus. The weights used on these looms in
ancient Greece consisted of clay whorls, or cones, pierced and decorated with
simple paintings. Dr. Schliemann found 22,000 of these cones on the plains
of Troy alone. In Scandinavian countries the use of weights continued
up to modern times.
The Indian loom, which dates from prehistoric times and which is still
in use in most parts of India, consists of two bamboo rollers, one for the
warp and the other for the web, and a pair of geer. The shuttle performs
the double office of shuttle and batten, and for this purpose is made like
a large netting needle, and of a length somewhat exceeding the breadth of
the piece. (In variants of this loom, the shuttle is sometimes of a small
size and is thrown.) This apparatus the weaver carries to a tree, under
which he digs a hole large enough to contain his legs and the lower part
of the geer. He then stretches his warp by fastening his bamboo rollers at
a due distance from each other on the turf by wooden pins. The balances
of the geer he fastens to some convenient branch of the tree over his head :
two loops underneath the gear, in which he inserts his great toes, serve
instead of treadles; and his long shuttle, which also performs the office
of batten, draws the weft through the warp and afterwards strikes it up
close to the web." (See Plate 7.) The method of weaving figured Indian
muslins is thus described in a work published for private circulation in the
nineteenth century.
"Two weavers sit at the loom. They place the pattern drawn upon
paper, below the warp, and range along the track of the woof a number of
cut threads equal to the flowers or parts of the design intended to be made.
OF THE UNITED STATES 115
and then with two fine-pointed bamboo sticks they draw each of these
threads between as many threads of the warp as may be equal to the width
of the figure which is to be formed. When all the threads have been
■brought between the warp, they are drawn close by a stroke of the lay.
The shuttle is then passed by one of the weavers through the shed, and
the weft having been driven home, it is returned by the other weaver. The
weavers resume their work with the bamboo sticks, and repeat the opera-
tion with the lay and shuttle in the manner above described, observing
each time to pass the flower threads between a greater or less number of
the threads of the warp, in proportion to the size of the design to be
formed." In this simple manner and with the simplest of weaving ap-
paratus, the delicate, as well as the elaborate productions of India, have
been woven from time immemorial. "A specimen of Mulmul khas (muslin
made for the king), says another writer, "measuring ten yards by one
yard, contained 1,800 or 1,900 threads in the warp. It weighed three
ounces, two dwt. fourteen grains troy. It is so fine as to pass through the
smallest ring. Price, 100 rupees, or $50. Another specimen, as wbrn by
native dancers and singers, measuring twenty yards by one yard, had 1,000
threads in the warp, and weighed eight and one-half ounces."
On the American continent, the Peruvians as well as the Aztecs and
the Mexicans of ancient times possessed from prehistoric times a knowl-
edge of the art of weaving. At Tarapaca, in Peru, in 1874, a mummy was
dug up, and with it was cotton twine and a woven bag. These were found
beneath the volcanic formation called Chuco, which is itself of vast
antiquity. Under the Incas, the Peruvians made woven goods from the
fibre of the maguey, as well as woolen cloth for their own use, and vicuna
cloth for the Inca. Vigona wool was wrought into shawls, robes and
other articles of dress for the monarch, and into carpets, coverlets and
hangings for the imperial palaces and the temples. The cloth was finished
on both sides alike ; the delicacy of the texture was such as to give it the
lustre of silk. The Peruvians produced also an article of great strength
and durability by mixing the hair of animals with wool." (Prescott.)
The Chileans manufactured woolen cloth for garments, using the spindle,
distaff and loom, and the women were apt at the art of embroidering
in 1535, when Almagro invaded Chili. The Aztecs, or Ancient Mexicans,
were skilled in weaving cotton into webs of every degree of fineness, and
made a peculiar cloth, both warm and beautiful, by weaving into their
cotton cloth the hair of rabbits and other animals.
An instance of the universal knowledge of weaving among all peoples
is given by a writer who accompanied the troops in the Ashantee War. He
says: "The Fantee weaver uses a loom of a very primitive construction,
but is marvellously quick at his work, throwing the shuttle from side to
side with his hands, and working the treadles with his toes. The thread
used is extremely fine, and of the brightest colors, but the pattern is not
ii6 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
of a very elaborate nature. The material is very dear, being a dollar a
yard, at least double the price of English fabric, but is very strong and
lasts much longer."
The materials used in weaving comprise : first, animal fibres : the tran-
sitition from the wearing of the skins of animals to weaving their sheared
fleeces seems a natural one, and as the wealth of nomadic peoples con-
sisted largely of their flocks and herds, there was naturally no lack of
material. Among these animal fibres are sheeps' wool, camels' hair, goats'
hair, beavers' wool and silk, which is first mentioned by Aristotle, and the
fibres of the pinna, a shell-fish found near the shore of South Italy, Sicily,
Corsica and Sardinia. This curious bivalve fastens itself to the sand by a
tuft of silken fibres, and these fibres were woven by the natives of Tarentum
into stockings and gloves, which were said to preserve the wearers from
the effects of damp.
Then come the vegetable fibres, flax, cotton, maguey, sisal hemp and
the fibrous portions of various plants of the agave family.
The minerals follow, gold being by far the most largely used from
the very earliest times to the middle ages, being particularly characteristic
of Oriental customs. Silver also was used, though to a more limited
extent. There are frequent allusions to the use of gold in Holy Writ:
Moses describes the method hy which it was prepared for the loom:
"They did beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires to work it
in the blue, and in the purple, and in the scarlet, and in the fine linen,
with cunning work" (Exodus xxxix. 3). A modern writer affirms that
he saw in Rome a sample of cloth in which the wire was as fine as No.
205 (this is an English number and may diflfer from the American modern
way of numbering) of the cotton yarn of to-day.
Virgil writes that Dido the Sidonian, in Trojan times, wove a garment
with gold, and also that one was woven by Andromache. Herodotus
mentions a tunic made in Greece as being "all made of silver and wonderful
in its texture." The Persians in very ancient times made shawls of purple
interwoven with gold. A very costly cloth of gold was called by the Romans
"attalica," after Attains. The C?esar Cestus, who died about the middle
of the first century before Christ, left orders in his will that his body
should be wrapped in certain pieces of attalica ; but as this was forl>idden
by a sumptuary law, his heirs sold the attalica, and with the proceeds
had two colossal bronze statues made, which were set outside the tomb,
C. Cestus being buried in the exisiting pyramid in Rome. The feet of
one of these statues have been found, with a pedestal on which are inscribed
the facts above related; the size of the statue attests that the attalica
must have been worth a very large sum. The Chinese also used gold
in their silken materials, which in mediaeval times were imported into
the West of Europe, and sometimes used in churches, etc. In classical
times, attalica and other gold stuffs were made of solid gold wire, made
OF THE UNITED STATES 117
as Moses describes, and masses of this fine gold wire have from time
to time been found in the tombs of Egypt, Greece and Etruria, the
metal having lasted long after the rest of the materials had perished beyond
a trace. The grave of the wife of Honorius was opened in 1544, and
thirty-six pounds of gold thread were taken out of it and melted.
Another mineral used by the ancients in the loom was asbestos,
which is mentioned by Strabo as being used to make the funeral shirts
of kings. A piece of asbestine cloth was found in a tomb at Puzzuolo in
1633, and it is preserved in the Barberini Gallery. Another piece was
found in a marble sarcophagus in a vineyard n mile without the Porta
Major, at Rome. It was about five feet wide and six and one-half feet
long, and contained the skull and other burnt bones of a human body.
It is preserved in the Vatican Library, and is thus described by one who
saw it: "It is coarsely spun, but as soft and pliant as silk." In Cyprus
and Arabia asbestos was spun and woven into socks and stockings and
underdrawers.
Allusions to the loom and its products occur frequently in Holy
Writ: Pharoah arrayed Joseph in "vestures of fine linen," and we must
not forget that Joseph, when sold by his brothers, wore a "coat of many
colors," which had awakened their envy. The directions for the furnish-
ings and hangings of the Tabernacle show that the Jews had acquired
the very highest degree of excellence in the arts of weaving, embroidering
and coloring. The figures of the Cherubim must have been woven, since
in curtains of the width described it would have taken an age to embroider
them by hand. They manufactured to a great extent fabrics of blue,
purple, fine linen and goats' hair (Exodus 36: i, 2), and the allusions to
lace (Exodus 28: 37 and 30: 21, 31) show that they were skilled in the
art of lace-making. Some of this knowledge was doubtless acquired
during their sojourn in Egj'pt. We learn, however, from the Old Testa-
ment that the Israelites from the dawnings of history had been proficient
in the inventive arts and skilled in mechanical occupations ; they "were
filled with wisdom of heart to work all manner of work of the engraver,
and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer in blue, and in
purple, in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver; even of them
that do any work, and of those that devise cunning work" (Exodus 35 : 35).
Although Herodotus visited Egypt about 450 B. C, and describes
much of the manner of life of the Egyptians at home and abroad, he
singularly enough makes no further allusion to the loom than this : "Other
nations in weaving shoot the woof above; the Egyptians, beneath."
The ancient Egyptians were also skilled in the production of lace and
net, the designs and figures of which were very elaborate. The prophet,
in his denunciations of the Egyptians, particularly threatens the flax and
lace manufacturers : "Moreover, they that work in fine flax and they
that weave networks shall be confounded" (Isaiah 19: 9).
ii8 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Some of the cloths wound around mummies were woven with stripes
of contrasting colors, as blue and fawn. A scarf is in existence bordered
with seven stripes of blue, the broadest at the edge of the selvage being
half an inch wide, followed by five very narrow ones and terminated
by one an eighth of an inch broad.
The operations of the Egyptians were not confined to flax, however;
they wove wool, cotton and silk, and their figured materials were very
beautiful and eminently artistic. Specimens of the linen woven by the
ancient Egyptiains are preserved in the British and other national mu-
seums, some of these being nearly four thousand years old. Several of those
in the British Museum are extremely fine and have the appearance of being
woven from thread about loo hanks to the pound, with 140 threads to
the inch in the warp and 64 in the woof, this peculiarity of weave being
noted in all the specimens of mummy cloth.
Insignificant indeed are these examples when compared with those
we find noted by the oldest historians or mentioned in Holy Writ, almost
incredible stories being related in regard to the fineness of their linen.
Herodotus mentions a pallium sent by King Amasis H (572-528 B. C.)
to the Spartans which was made of yarn containing no less than 360
threads ; figures were woven on this garment, partly of cotton and partly
of gold thread ; the same historian mentions a wonderful pallium sent
by the same king to the Shrine of Athene at Lindus. The Egyptians
also wove carpets quite like the modern Brussels and tapestry. Toward the
close of the nineteenth century, a large quantity of woven materials were
found in the tombs at Panapolis in Middle Egypt, which apparently dated
from the fourth to the seventh century A. D. In the earliest of these,
the designs were purely classical, while the later ones appear to be
Coptic vestments and are decorated with rude figures of Saint George
and other Oriental Saints. The figure drawing of these fabrics is rude,
but the decorative value is very great; they are specimens of true tapestry
weaving, the weft pattern being in brilliantly colored wools on a flaxen
warp.
The Phoenicians were renowneo for their skill in the manufacture of
textiles. Especially were they famed for their purple linen made at
Tyre and Sidon. Babylon was celebrated for its shawls, and Carthage,
Sardis, Miletus and Alexandria were all seats of textile manufacture
in the time of Herodotus.
Assyria, too, was far advanced in the textile arts; for though no
specimens of the productions of Assyrian looms remain, some idea of
their work may be gathered from the sculptured wall-reliefs from Nineveh,
which are now in the British Museum. The garments of Asur-banipal are
covered with delicate geometrical patterns with highly decorative borders
of lotus and other flowers. On the enamelled wall tiles from the palace
of Rameses II, at Tel-al-Yahudiga (fourteenth century B. C), still more
OF THE UNITED STATES 119
magnificent stuffs are represented as being worn by Assyrian captives,
the woven patterns being minutely reproduced in their different colors,
and the Assyrian design of the sacred tree between two guardian beasts
is represented on the most minute scale with great fidelity.
The textiles wrought in Spain under the Mohammedans though bearing
real or imitation Arabic characters and other sign marks of Saracenic
influence, had yet some distinctive features of their own. The designs
were almost alwa)'s some combination of geometrical lines, reticulations,
conventional flowers, the crescent moon being infrequently figured. The
colors were usually a fine crimson or a deep blue with fine-toned yellow
as a ground. The gold used in their textiles was parchment cut into
thin strips after being gilded with gold leaf.
Free from Saracenic control, the Christian Spanish weavers covered
their cloth with birds, beasts and flowers ; but the fine crimson coloring
was still a distinctive feature. Spanish velvets were chiefly made in
Andalusia; they were remarkably fine and distinguished both for their
deep, soft pile and their glowing ruby tones.
The history of the Sicilian loom is most interesting and varied. The
Mohammedans imparted to the people of Sicily the art of manufacturing
garments from cotton and how to rear the silkworm and spin its silk.
Sicilian designs show also the Saracenic influence; from the Mussulmans,
they must have obtained their knowledge of the fauna of the vast continent
of Africa, the giraffes, antelopes, gazelles and lions, the parrots of India
and the cheetahs of Asia ; thus the first textile period of Sicily shows not
only beasts and birds, but also Arabic words of greeting mingled with the
flowers and foliage. As will be shown later on, when the Moslems had
been driven out by the Normans, many of their weavers must have
remained in Palermo, for their teachings in design and weaving were fol-
lowed for several centuries afterward.
Our knowledge of early Greek textiles is largely dependent on the
descriptions given by various classical authors, though there are a few
remaining specimens, one of which, a remarkable specimen of tapestry
from a tomb in the Crimea, is alleged on the highest authority to date
from the fourth century before Christ. The poems of Homer resound with
descriptions of ^voven stuffs of the most magnificent description, both as
to material and design, used both for dresses and for hangings. In the
Odyssy (225-235), he describes a cloth of purple wool with a hunting
scene in gold thread woven by Penelope for Ulysses. Many of the
Greek vases have representatives of rich woven dresses. One of these,
an amphora in the Vatican, shows Achilles and Ajax engaged in a game
resembling draughts. This vase dates from 460 B. C, and a rather later
example in the British Museum shows a splendid figure of Demeter clad
in a pallium covered with figures of chariots and winged horses. In
later times, we read of magnificent peploi woven to cover or shade the
120 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
statues of the deities at the famous shrines of Delphi, Olympia and
at Athens and the treasuries of most Greek temples contained immense
stores of rich woven stuffs. Euripides describes with glowing commen-
dation a peplos belonging to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, on which
was represented the firmament of heaven, with Apollo Helios in his chariot,
surrounded by the chief stars and constellations. Weaving among the
early Greeks and also the Romans was a distinct trade, carried on in
towns specially devoted to manufacture, yet every considerable domestic
establishment, especially in the country, contained a loom, together with all
other necessary apparatus for the production of woolen cloth. When the
farm or estate was sufficiently extensive, a portion of the house or palace,
called the "textrinum,'" was devoted to the purpose, and the work there
was carried on by female slaves under the superintendence of the mistress
of the house and her daughters.
The Romans, under the later Republic and under the Empire, pos-
sessed immense stores of the most magnificent textiles of every description.
Among those wjas the splendid collection of tapestry which, as well as
the other art treasures owned by that monarch, Rome inherited from
Attains II of Perganum (second century B. C.). From the same monarch
the very costly cloth of gold called "attalica" received its name. Mettellus
Scipio bought hangings from Babylon for which he paid 800,000 sesterces,
and similar pieces were bought by Nero for four millions of sesterces,
(about $16,800). Virgil tells of woven tapestries used in the theatres
on which were depicted the figures of Britons ; and many others represent-
ing classical themes are mentioned by contemporary writers.
Although by many it has been supposed that the ancient Britons had
no knowledge of weaving, specimens of coarse cloth, resembling baize, have
been found in ancient British barrows, and Boadicea is said to have worn
under her mantle of fur a motley tunic of many colors, which was
probably of native manufacture. Still the knowledge was primitive and
Britain was indebted to the Roman conquest for her early progress in
textile manufacture. The Romans under Claudius (10 B. C — 54 A. D.)
established factories at Winchester and other places for the making of
cloth for their armies and of sailcloth for their navy, and Britons wiere
presumably instructed by them in the art and employed in these factories,
for it had advanced to considerable importance at the Anglo-Saxon period.
Spinning was the occupation of the Anglo-Saxon ladies, and after the
cloth was woven they embroidered it with great skill, using colored silk
and gold and silver threads. Their work was celebrated on the continent
and was called English work, as in previous times a similar fabric was
styled Phrygian. King Edward the Elder sent his "son to scole and his
daughter to Work wole,"' that is, to learn to spin and perhaps weave wool.
The Anglo-Norman ladies were also proficient in what were then considered
domestic arts ; and tapestry, which adorned the walls of baronial castles.
OF THE UNITED STATES 121
was, in all probability, made by the ladies of the household. William of
Malmesbury says : "The shuttle is not filled with purple only, but with
various colors, moved here and there among the thick-spreading threads,
and by the embroiderer's art they adorn all the woven wprk with various
groups of figures." An ornamental cloth called baudekin was made,
which for a long time was highly esteemed. A few specimens of Anglo-
Saxon and Anglo-Norman weaving and embroidery still exist ; of the
latter, perhaps the best known is the famous Bayeux tapestry, which until
lately was believed to have been worked at least in part by Matilda.
Much cloth of an ordinary kind for the habiting of the people must
have been made during this period, for long before the conquest the
weavers of London had formed a corporation or guild, the first of its
kind in England, and shortly after guilds were also established at Winchester
and Salisbury. These guilds had no right of incorporation and paid
fines or taxes to the king for the privilege of making cloth.
At the inception of the Anglo-Norman period, the craft of weaving in
England received a stimulus from an unexpected quarter.
The woolen manufacturers of Flanders are said to have been estab-
lished about the middle of the tenth century during the years 958 and 960,
and so noted did they become for their skill in cloth making, that one,
writing of them, says : "It seemed in them to be almost a gift or instinct
in nature." To these able craftsmen England is greatly indebted for her
knowledge of the art of weaving. During the reign of William the Con-
queror (T027-1066) an inundation in Flanders drove numbers of these
artisans to seek refuge in England under the protection of William, who
had married their countrywoman, Matilda of Flanders. He settled them
at Carlisle, but the ill will of their neighbors involved them in so many
broils that Henry I removed them to Ras, now a part of Pembroke, where
their posterity can be recognized to this day. The cloth industry appears
to have been exceedingly prosperous in the reign of Henry I. One of the
foremost of the manufacturers was Thomas Cole, the rich clothier of
Reading, "whose wains filled with cloth crowded the highway between
that town and London." It is recorded that Henry gratified Cole by fixing
the set measure of a yard, his own arm being the standard thereof.
But wool was not the only material woven by the looms of that time.
The linen manufacture was well established in Norfolk in 1307. Aylesha,
in that county, was particularly noted for its flaxen fabrics, and "the
Aylesham Linens," "Aylesham Weaves" and the "fine cloth of Aylesham"
are frequently mentioned in old records.
It was in the reign of Edward III that the woolen manufacture
became firmly established in England. To foster it the king forbade the
exportation of wool and the importation of foreign cloth, and proclaimed
"that all cloth-workers of whatsoever country they be, which will come
into England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, within the king's power, shall
122 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
come safely and surely and shall be in the king's protection to dwell in
the same lands, dwelling where they will, and exercise their trade;" "by
which," adds the historian, "many were drawn, so was it the principal
cause of advancing that most beneficial trade." The king became surety
for the immigrants until such time as they were established in their occupa-
tion. Many Walloons availed themselves of this invitation, to the great
betterment of the industry. But all were not of the king's mind, and the
foreigners met with hostility. In 1342, the magistrates of Bristol per-
secuted Thomas Blanket and some other citizens who had set up looms
in their own houses and hired Flemish weavers to make woolen cloth.
Thomas Blanket, whose name was applied to the article made by him, ap-
pealed to the king, who wrote to the corporation : "Considering that the
manufactures may turn out to the great advantage of us and all the people
of our kingdom, you (the mayor) are to permit the machines to be erected
in their houses at their choice, without making on that account any re-
proach, hindrance or undue exaction." The benefits conferred upon the
country by Edward were long remembered. When once the great value
of the woolen manufacture became known and understood, England became
very jealous of anything that might be detrimental to its progress, and
laws were frequently passed preventing the exportation of wool. Accord-
ing to Fuller's Church History, the different branches of the manufacture
settled at the following places:
Berkshire, cloth ; Devonshire, kersey ; Essex, Colchester sayes and
serges ; Gloucestershire, cloth ; Hampshire, cloth ; Kent, Kentish broad-
cloths ; Lancashire, Manchester cotton ; Norfolk, Norwich fustians ; Somer-
setshire, Taunton serges ; Suffolk, Sudbury bayes ; Sussex, cloth ; Wales,
Welsh friezes; Westmoreland, Kendal cloth; Worcester, cloth; Yorkshire,
Halifax cloth.
Many of the manufacturers became quite renowned in their day and
their memories still live. The encouragement of Edward HI may be
regarded as the first important step taken for the permanent establishment
of the manufacture of textiles in England. In the reign of Richard II
(1379) the foreign workmen had become so numerous in England that
places were set apart for their meetings, and the king, who delighted in
the rich products of their looms, had a coat of gold interwoven with precious
stones. While the English were laboriously acquiring their fundamental
knowledge of the art of weaving, in the countries of Europe and Asia was
transpiring a brilliant era of artistic achievement in textile art, of which it is
proper here to give some brief account. The Moslem influence predominated
during the inception of this era, which was followed by a decline of artistic
weaving and the growth of the modern system of manufacture.
Byzantium from the sixth to the thirteenth century was the capital
of all the industrial arts, and her influence on art during that period is
particularly obvious in textile manufactures. By her the arts of ancient
OF THE UNITED STATES 123
Greece and Rome were fused and mingled with the artistic skill of Egypt,
Assyria, Persia and of Asia Minor. The introduction of silk into Europe
in the reign of Justinian, and the enduring nature of that material, has
afforded us many specimens of the skill of the weaver of the times. In
the tombs of Charlemagne and other kings silken stuffs were found which
showed a certain class of designs much used in Byzantium. In the time
of Justinian, some of these designs were of a composite character, mingling
the figure subjects of Rome with the stronger decorative beauty of the East.
Chariot races in the circus, consuls and emperors enthroned in state, glad-
iatorial fights with lions, and other classical subjects occur, arranged in
medallions or wreaths, set in close rows so as to fill up the ground. Again,
mixed with these classical scenes, are designs of purely Assyrian origin,
such as the sacred tree between two guardian beasts, closely resembling the
designs of 2000 B. C. The production of these rich fabrics was not con-
fined to Byzantium, but was carried on in many of the cities of Greece ;
notably, in Corinth, Athens and Thebes, which were especially famed for
their silk textiles.
From the sixth to the twelfth century Persia also, as well as Syria,
produced woven stuffs of a most costly and magnificent description, master-
pieces of textile design. From the eighth to the tenth century, names of
the Caliphs and Arabic sentences from the Koran were introduced freely
with the most artistic effects.
And now followed .Sicily's second period. In the twelfth century an
impetus was imparted to the industry in Sicily, which legend ascribes to
Roger of Sicily, who made a raid on the shores of Attica, took Athens,
Corinth and Thebes, and carried a number of the most skilled weavers of
those cities to Palermo, where he enabled them to found the royal factory
for silk weaving and which flourished for about two centuries. A large
number of examples of the beautiful fabrics then produced in Sicily still
exist, masterpieces of the textile art. One of the earliest of these is a
piece of silk stuff in which the body of Saint Cuthbert at Durham was
wrapped when his relics were translated in 1104; Western and Oriental
designs are mingled in the figures woven upon it; birds and conventional
ornaments of purely Eastern style with designs taken from the late Roman
mosaics. This specimen was found on the opening of Saint Cuthbert's grave
in 1827, and is preserved in the library of Durham Cathedral. The Sicilian
silks of the twelfth to the fourteenth century were largely used for ecclesias-
tical purposes. Designs were sometimes introduced into these fabrics, such
as the Assyrian sacred tree and sham Arabic letters, which seem to indicate
a desire that they should pass for the genuine product of Saracenic looms.
But these masterpieces of textile art have never since been rivalled either
in richness of coloring or beauty of design, which were further enriched
by the skillful application of gold thread.
Sicily's third is quite her own peculiar style. At the close of the
124 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century, she struck into a
hitherto unknown path for design, and added to the Eastern elements
the emblem of Christianity, the cross in various forms, sometimes in the
shape of four V's so placed as to form the symbol. Her weavers partly
discarded the fauna of the East and wove odd compounds, such as an
animal half elephant, half griffin, winged lions, floriated crosses and harts
and demidogs with very large wings and extremely long manes floating
behind them, and they drew the swan in graceful lines. The Sicilians
evinced in their fabrics their love for certain plants and flowers. The
curled parsley leaf in its natural green was a favorite design, as well as
the graceful leaves and tendrils of the grapevine.
In this period also the Sicilians were wont to introduce heraldic
devices, such as wyverns, eagles, lions rampant, and grififins, and another
peculiarity was the use of two dominating colors, murrey for the ground
and green for the pattern, but, alas, this was also a period of deterioration
for their bold-spirited designs were too often thrown away upon stuffs
of a very inferior quality, in which the gold, if not base, was scanty, while
the silk was sure to be mingled with cotton. The looms of Lucca, Florence,
Genoa, Venice and Milan all won repute and acquired a good trade for
their velvets, their figured silken textiles and their tissues of gold and
silver; yet there was a provincial style in the fabrics of these states, which
told from whence each piece had come. The cloths of gold and silver
woven in Lucca were in great request during the fourteenth century, es-
pecially in England for ecclesiastical purposes. Exeter and York cathedrals
in particular possessed fine specimens of this cloth among its vestments.
Lucca was probably among the first places to weave velvet. Genoa, so
celebrated for her velvets, must have early encouraged the silk industry;
for a description of the earliest pieces of Genoese silk known are to be
found in the inventory of the costly vestments, belonging to Saint Paul's
Cathedral in 1295; from which it is inferred that the Genoese cloths
must have resembled those of Lucca and of Sicily. Genoa is celebrated
for her rich velvets, both plain and artistic. Some of the latter were raised
or cut, the design showing in a pile standing well up in a plain silk
background ; others had a velvet ground with the pattern raised in a double
pile, velvet upon velvet.
Venice was more original in her choice of designs and did not, like
her sister cities, follow to any extent the Oriental patterns of beasts and
birds. She wrought for church use square webs of crimson ground on
which she figured in gold or in yellow silk subjects taken from the New
Testament or the persons of saints or angels. Some very beautiful speci-
mens of this Venetian web have as subjects the coronation of the Virgin,
the Resurrection of the Lord, etc. ; these designs bear so remarkable a
likeness to the woodcuts done in Venice in the fifteenth century for religious
books that "one is led to think that the men who cut the blocks for the
OF THE UNITED STATES I2S
printers also worked for the weavers of \'enice and sketched out the draw-
ings for their looms." (Daniel Rock, D. D.) In the fifteenth century Ven-
ice produced good damask, usually decorated with historical designs; there
is also little doubt that she too produced velvets like those mentioned above.
She was celebrated for her lace and Venetian linens.
The weavers of Florence held foremost rank among the weavers of
Northern Italy in the fourteenth century. Her diapers, some of which are
in the South Kensington Museum amply attest her skill. Ecclesiastical webs
woven in Venice display great taste in design and wonderful power in gear-
ing the loom. But of her velvets, Venice had unquestionable reason to be
proud. Henry VII bequeathed to Westminster Abbey a suit of vestments
"to be made at Florence in Italy."
Milan, though nowadays famed for her beautiful silken fabrics of all
sorts, was not in mediicval times .so famous for the productions of her looms
as for her armour; still, during the fifteenth century, rich-cut velvets were
made there, specimens of which are still in existence ; she wove also laces
of the open-tinsel kind for liturgical as well as secular purposes.
In the fabrics of the loom gold was used very effectively and liberally
throughout the middle ages, cloth of gold being employed for ecclesiastical
and royal purposes. Westminster Abbey still possesses a cope woven of
pure gold, dating from the fifteenth century, the brilliancy of which is
almo.st perfectly preserved.
Mention has been made of the superior skill of the Flemish in the mak-
ing of woolen cloths. We must add that they were equally renowned for
the magnificence of their tapestries, and in the fourteenth century Flanders
produced enormous quantities of woven stuffs. It is recorded that the
weavers of Ghent occupied twenty-seven streets; in 1832 there were 50,000
weavers in Louvain, and the number at Ypres was still larger.
In the latter part of the fifteenth century Bruges became conspicuous
for the excellence of its silken textiles, and the satins of that town were
in great use for church garments ; her damask silks wiere especially in de-
mand. Nor did Flanders need to fear comparison of her velvets with those
of Italy; for magnificence of coloring and rich softness of pile those prod-
ucts of her looms were unsurpassed. Her block-printed linens were re-
nowned in the fourteenth century, while in the fifteenth the reputation of
Ypres, for her linens, rivalled that of Bruges for silks.
In France, as in England, the women of the thirteenth century wove
on small looms in their household, narrow webs of plain and ornamental
fabrics. The earliest damasks of her looms date from the fifteenth cen-
tury. Her velvets were satisfactory, and cloth of gold very good. Some
very beautiful specimens of fine linen came from the looms of France as
early as the thirteenth century.
The manufacture of silk and ribbon had so advanced in England by
1455, that an act prohibiting the importation of those articles was passed on
126 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
the petition of certain silk weavers. In 1473 cloths of gold and silver were
manufactured in London, and the woolen manufacture not only fully fur-
nished the home demand, but provided a large amount of goods for ex-
portation. The cloth industry languished somewhat in the reign of Henry
VII, who invited numbers of the best weavers of cloth from the Nether-
lands, which imparted new vigor to the industry. In the reign of his suc-
cessor, Henry V'lII, broad looms were introduced for the weaving of broad-
cloths. John Winscombe, better known as "J^ck of Newbury," was the
first to introduce them. This worthy was long considered the greatest
clothier in England ; he had a hundred looms in his house, each managed
by a man and a boy. About this time tapestry weaving, so long neglected,
was re-introduced by William Sheldon, and maps of Hereford, Salop, Staf-
ford, Worcester, etc., were woven under his direction and are now in the
Bodleian Library.
Shakespeare makes frequent mention of weavers and the exactions that
were put upon them. The passage in Henry VIII, where Woolsey is charged
with taxation, refers to this period. Thus the Duke of Norfolk states:
'"Not almost appears,
It doth appear; for upon these taxations
The clothiers all, not able to maintain
The many to their longing, have put off
The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers who.
Unfit for other life, compelled by hunger
And lack of other means, in desperate manner
Daring the event to the teeth, are all in uproar,
And danger serves among them."
The next important event which had a bearing upon the progress of
the art of weaving in England was the influx of refugees from the Nether-
lands, who were driven from home by the religious persecutors of the Duke
of Alod. It is highly probable that the draw loom for damask weaving
was introduced into England by them. At any rate they greatly benefited
the communities in which they settled by their superior knowledge of the
craft, and James I gave encouragement and protection to such of them
as suffered from the jealousy and animosity of the English weavers. In
1753 great perfection was attained in the weaving of wrought velvets,
branched satins and other kinds of curious silk stufifs, and bombazines were
first made in Norwich. The following looms v^'ere exhibited in a pageant
which passed before Queen Elizabeth, at Norwich, in 1578: "Looms for
worsteds, for russets, for darnix, for mockads, for lace, for cafTa and for
fringe ;" and the art of weaving sailcloth for the navy was introduced in
the following year.
In, 1642 a curious pamphlet mentions the fact that cotton "fustians.
bo
g
Eh
<
coo
in
E-?
O nt
OF THE UNITED STATES 127
vermilions, dymities and other such stufifs" were woven in Manchester. In
1676 the "Dutch engine loom" was introduced into London from Holland.
In 1678 M. de Gennes presented his model of "a machine for making woolen
cFoths without the aid of a workman" to the Royal Academy. In 1685 the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes sent 75,000 French refugees to England,
many of whom were silk weavers who settled in Spitalfields, where velvet
weaving was introduced in 1686.
It is not necessary that we should in this article give a technical dis-
sertation on the art of weaving as practised in modern times ; we have not
the space to do justice to so weighty a subject, nor do our readers require
such information ; but in order to properly set forth the gradual evolution
of the art towards the perfection of modern methods pnd results, we will
briefly mention the principal innovations, so far as they relate to the loom, of
that brilliant era of inventions which had its inception in 1718 and which
re\olutioni7ed the weaving and kindred industries and led to the establish-
ment of the modern factory system. In this era America participated at first
imitatively, later on taking a leading part in the invention and applica-
tion of new princi])les and devices to those already existent. It is neces-
sary, therefore, at this point, that we should retrace our steps and give
some account of the previous state of the art in the British colonies in
North America. The colonists naturally brought with them the domestic
arts of spinning and of weaving. In every household it had been the prac-
tice for the women of the family to prepare and spin the wool and flax
for domestic purposes, and to weave woolen and linen cloths for the wear
■of their households. Among the immigrants to the New England colonies
were no doubt many of the weaving trade; and in the year 1638 came a
little company of these from Rowley, in Yorkshire, and settled about six
miles from Ipswich, in Massachusetts, calling the place Rowley. At their
head was the Rev. Ezekiel Rogers, a non-conforming minister, whom they
had followed when he was ejected from his parish. They established them-
selves in the manufacture of woolen cloth, that having been their former
occupation, and to them, in 1643, came John Pearson from Lynn and es-
tablished the first fulling mill in this country. During the Protectorate of
Cromwell many of the exiles returned to England and there was a greatly
diminished intercourse by vessel with England, which necessarily caused
the supply of fabrics from the mother country to decline. Consequently,
steps were taken by the General Court of Massachusetts for the fostering
of the textile industry so far as it related to the weaving of cotton, linen,
and woolen cloth, and bounties and other encouragements were given to
those who were willing to set up their looms. It is recorded by the Friends
who settled Salem, Burlington and other towns in the province of West
Jersey that "they soon commenced the manufacture of cloth," and an Eng-
lish writer, in 1697, mentions that they made "very good serges, druggets.
128 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
crapes, camblets (part hair) and good plushes, with several other woolen
cloths, besides linen."
To Philadelphia, from CTcfeld on the lower Rhine, came immigrants
who were weavers and who soon acquired a high reputation for their linen
fabrics. John Goodson, writing from Philadelphia to Friends in England,
in 1690, says: "There are three wool weavers that are entering upon the
wool manufacturing in that town, besides several in the country ; and five
miles off is a town of Dutch and German people that have set up the linen
manufactory, which weave and make many hundred yards of pure, fine
linnen cloath in a year." J. Leander Bishop, in his "History of American
Manufactures," says that the price for weaving linen in 1688 wlas "ten
or twelve pense per yard, half a yard wide," which leads us to understand
that the linen was woven not only for domestic purposes, but as a mer-
chantable commodity. In 1699 a law was passed prohibiting the exporta-
tion of wool or woolen manufactures from the English plantations in
America. In 1705 Lord Cornbury. then governor of the Province of New
York, in a report to the British Board of Trade, said : "I am well informed
that upon Long Island and Connecticut they are setting upon a woolen
manufacture, and I myself have seen serge made upon Long Island that
any man may wear. Now, if they begin to make serge, they will, in time,
make coarse cloth and then fine. How far this will be for the service of
England I submit to better judgment," etc.
Caleb Heathcote, a member of the Council, wrote also to the Board of
Trade: "They were already so far advanced in the art of weaving that
three-fourths of the linen and woolen used was made amongst them, espe-
cially of the coarse sort ; and if some speedy and effectual ways are not
found to put a stop to it, they will carry it on a great deal further, and,
perhaps, in time, to the prejudice of our manufactories at home."
A letter referring to the same subject, written in 1715, gives us a little
further insight into the state of the industry at that date: "Nine years
before, the great scarcity and dearness of woolen goods, which sold at two
hundred per cent advance, had forced them to set up a very considerable
manufactory, still in being, for stuffs. Kerseys, Linsey Woolseys, flannels,
buttons, etc., by which the importations of these colonies had been decreased
fifty thousand pounds per annum."
The historian Bishop writes : "The descriptions of cloth made at this
time in America were almost exclusively the stout and coarser kinds of
mixed fabrics, into which linen and hempen thread largely entered as a
material. Cotton was regularly imported in small quantities, chiefly from
Barbadoes, but occasionally also from Smyrna and other places to which
trade extended, and was made into fustians and other stuff with linen
thread. The linens made at that time were for the most part of quite a
coarse texture. The kerseys, linsey woolseys, serges and druggets consisted
of wool, variously combined with flax or tow, and formed the outer clothing
OF THE UNITED STATES 129
of a large part of the population during the colder seasons. Hempen cloth
and linen, of different degrees of fineness, from the coarsest tow cloth to
the finest Osnaburg or Holland, constituted the principal wearing apparel,
outward and inward, at other times. The inner garments and the bed and
table linen of nearly all classes were almost entirely supplied from the
serviceable products of the household industry. As the implements of manu-
facture were then comparatively rude, and many modern processes of manu-
facture and finish were as yet unknown, the fabrics made, whether linen
or woolen, were more remarkable for service than for elegance.
The material was mostly grown upon the farms of the planters, the
breaking and heckling being done by the men, while the carding, spinning,
weaving, bleaching and dyeing were performed by the wives and daughters
of the planter. The beauty and abundance of the stores of household linen
were an object of laudable pride and emulation with all thrifty families.
In 1718 some Protestants in the North of Ireland sent an address signed by
319 persons to Governor Shute, of ]\Iassachusetts, and receiving a favorable
answer they embarked with their wives and children in five ships for Bos-
ton. Some of these settled on a grant of land near Nuffield in 1719, and
in 1722 gave the town the name of Londonderrj'. These people were trained
weavers and had brought their looms and spinning wheels, and at once pre-
pared to engage in the manufacture of linen. They grew their own flax,
and the linen fabrics woven by them were so superior that imitators sold
their wares as being of "Derry make."
Such was the state of the weaving industry in the colonies up to the
time of the invention of the fly shuttle by Mr. John Kay, of Colchester, in
1733 This gentleman had already effected various improvements in dress-
ing, batting and carding machines, and various improvements in looms,
among them that of substituting blades of metal for strips of cane for the
construction of the reed or sley, which became known as "Kay's reeds."
He now produced an improvement which ultimately proved of vast im-
portance, and which is to-day a part of every power loom — namely, the
fly shuttle, which enabled one man to work the broad loom which had
before required two, one at each side of the loom, the shuttle being thrown
alternately from one to the other. When the fly shuttle was first intro-
duced, it was intended to use one shuttle only ; but later on an improve-
ment was effected by Robert Kay, the son of John Kay, who invented the
"drop box," by means of which three or more shuttles could be used for
the dift'erent colors. (See Plate 7.)
Prior to the invention of the Jacquard loom and other automatic ma-
chines, the weaver was compelled to make use of a variety of more or less
complicated contrivances in order to successfully produce figured or orna-
mental fabrics. The ingeiuiity shown was often very great. Machines
there were, it is true, which lent their aid to the hand-loom weaver in the
production of figured cloths previous to the adoption of the Jacquard ma-
130 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
chine, one of which, the draw loom for weaving damask, was introduced
into England about 1567 by the Dutch and Flemish weavers, who fled to
various countries and established this branch of weaving. The draw loom
is supposed to have been used in Damascus, and a knowledge of it carried
to Europe by the Crusaders. The Chinese have a rude description of draw-
loom in which the draw-boy stands upon the top of the loom to pull up
the neck cords. A weaver's assistant under that name was employed in
England, also until the invention of an automatic device for the same pur-
pose, called the draw-boy machine, which performed the same service more
perfectly, because of its automatic regularity and the impossibility of its
drawing the wrong threads as the draw-boy was apt to do. Several per-
sons have received credit for this innovation, but Joseph Mason, who in
17 — patented an engine, "by the help of which a weaver may perform the
whole works of weaving such stuft'e as the greatest weaving trade of Nor-
wich doth now depend upon, without the help of a draught-boy, which en-
gine hath been tryed and found out to be of great use to the said weaveing
trade,"' was undoubtedly the first inventor. In 1779 William Cheape pat-
ented a plan to dispense with the draw-boy machine by drawing down the
simple cords which were placed over his head and to hold each cord in a
notch while he worked over the treadle.
The "Dutch engine," or ribbon loom, which was invented in Dantzic,
Germany, about 1575 to 1589, deserves especial notice as being the first suc-
cessful power loom known to modern manufacture; it was also called the
swivel loom. Prior to its invention ribbons were woven in small looms, and
only one ribbon was woven at once ; by means of the swivel loom it was
possible to weave eight to ten or thirty to forty ribbons at one time. This
loom was known in Ley den m i62r, and its invention is claimed for that
place; at any rate its use was prohibited, as it was in Dantzic. The State's
General renewed the prohibition in 1639, and the use of the loom was pro-
hibited in Nuremberg and in the Spanish Netherlands in 1664. In 1676 it
was prohibited at Cologne, and a prohibitive act was passed in regard to it
by the Council of Frankfort. The Council of Hamburg ordered one of
these looms to be burnt, and Charles \T ordered the prohibition to be re-
nev>ed in 1719, though the measure was strongly opposed by some of its
mercantile advocates. Saxony revoked its prohibition in 1765. In 1676 the
"Dutch engine loom" was introduced into England from Holland, and from
that time on improvements were made in it both in England and France,
so that a century and a half ago and long before Dr. Cartwright's time,
the swivel loom had been made self-acting, all the principal operations of
the loom being automatic; the shedding of the warp, throwing the shuttle
and beating the weft together were effectually accomplished by means of
cranks, tappets, etc., almost as at the present time.
In 1745 we have the first accoimt of any improvement in swivel looms
in the si)ecif'cations of a patent granted to John Kay, the inventor of the
OF THE UNITED STATES 131
fly shuttle, and John Stell; the patent is dated from 1745, No. 612, for a
loom for weaving tapes, the specification is of interest as containing what
is perhaps the first mention of tappets as applied to a successfully working
loom. "The new invention to be added to the Dutch engine or loom now
used for working the before-mentioned goods in narrow breadths is by
fixing in the lower part of said engine or loom a rowler beam, or round
piece of timber, that passes through the length of the said engine or loom
and turns round upon its axis at each end, and at a certain distance from
one end of the said rowler or beam is fixed a pin made of wood or iron,
the said rowler or beam being in part enclosed in a second or other hollow
rowler, which moves or slides in a loose position upon the first-mentioned
rowler or beam, and is at pleasure fixed to the first by means of a notch
that receives the aforesaid pin, and is, by a tender or handle, capable of
being moved to and again, or to the right hand and left, which motion, the
first rowler or beam being supposed to turn round, sets the said engine or
loom to work or stoppeth it at pleasure.
"There are likewise fixed in the sliding beam or hollow rowler, at
proper distances, sundry tapits, which, when the said two rowlers or beams
turn round, perform the office of treading the necessary treadles and move
the batten or lath, and, by the help of the other piece of timber or part of
the machine fixed upon the aforesaid batten or lath, in the form of the
letter T or angle, which plays upon an axis at the centre of the top or
head, and by two treadles annexed to the extremity of each uppermost
angle, the aforesaid tapets, laying hold and treading down the treadles afore-
said and throws over the shuttles to the right hand and left by means of
the lowermost or third angle, being annexed to a certain part of the said
engine or loom, called a driver, and is further assisted by a balance or
weight, and the batten being stuck to the piece or web by a weight or spring
closeth the shoot and completes the work, and the said engine may go
or be worked by hands, water or any other force." In Kay's specification
there is no mention of the bar which may have been added by Vaucanson,
the first mention of it being in Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopedia, 1762.
Sir Edward Baines, in his "History of the Cotton Manufacture," mentions
a swivel loom invented by Vaucanson, and in 1765 a weaving factory, built
by Mr. Gartside, was filled with swivel looms ; but whether these were
McKay and Stells or \^aucanson"s is indeterminate. At any rate, the bar
or swivel loom can hardly be regarded as any other than the first successful
power or automatic loom. Minor improvements have since been made,
such as the employment of different tiers of shuttles, but none of these im-
provements afifect in any way the principle of the loom. The ribbon loom
may be regarded as "a series of distinct looms, mounted within one frame,
each having its own warp and cloth beams, heddles and shuttle, but all
worked by one set of treadles and with a single batten. The Jacquard ap-
132 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
paratus and the drop-box arrangement for changing shuttles have been
applied to this valuable machine.
Mr. Thomas Morton, of Kilmarnock, Scotland, invented a barrel or
cylinder loom for fancy vv^eaving. The improvement consisted of the use
of a barrel or cylinder, "on the surface of which the figure or pattern to
be produced in the cloth is arranged in relief, precisely the same way as
tunes are disposed on the barrel of the common organ, or on that of a musical
box, by inserting wire staples or wooden pins and the barrel being placed
upon the top of the loom ; these staples actuate other suitable mechanism,
and thus the pattern is formed upon the cloth.
But the most important and ingenious appliance that has ever been
adapted to weaving was in course of evolution ; a machine by means of
which it has become possible to produce the most intricate and extended
patterns with the same certainty and with almost the same rapidity as plain
cloth — namely, the Jacquard loom. Although the germ of the idea had been
conceived by Bouchon, who, in 1728, patented in France the application of
perforated paper for working the draw loom, and by Falcon, who, in 1728,
substituted a chain of cards to turn on a prism or cylinder in lieu of the
paper band of M. Bouchon, and by M. Vaucanson, who, in 1745, applied
the griflfe to M. Falcon's invention and placed the apparatus on the top
of the loom in the position it now occupies in the Jacquard loom, still, the
credit of making the machine of practical utility and of introducing it to
the world is due to Joseph Marie Jacquard, of Lyons. M. Jacquard be-
gan his experience in 1801 at the request of Napoleon, and when first in-
troduced in France the machines met with much opposition ; they were dis-
mantled and burned : but after some years the inventor had the satisfaction
of seeing the merits of his loom fully recognized. (See Flate 8.)
In 1816 Mr. Stephen Wilson introduced the Jacquard loom into Eng-
land, and he is credited with having effected several improvements in it.
Before a Lords' Committee on the silk trade, in 1823, Mr. Wilson said: "If
I am not too sanguine, my idea of this machinery is that it is of as much
consequence to the silk manufacture as Arkwright's machine was to the cot-
ton, and that it will supersede a great many of the machines now in use."
The general efficiency of this loom has from time to time been greatly augu-
mented by scientific and practical weavers both in America and Europe. In
1822 the Jacquard loom was first set up in Coventry, England; in 1823 there
■were five of these looms in that town; in 1832 there were 600; and in 1838
2,228. The Jacquard loom has in the progress of manufacture been ap-
plied to various purposes, notably to the making of lace, of counterpanes,
and so forth. It is very simple in its construction and almost unlimited in
its extent and scope, and well deserves the high estimation in which it has
ever been held. Some noted examples of early work done by the Jacquard
were the weaving of Queen Victoria's coronation dress, in which thirty
colors and as many shuttles were used ; and a night shirt for Pope Boniface,
OF THE UNITED STATES I35
in the production of which 276 shuttles were employed ; the pattern dis-
played correct likenesses of 276 heretics, each suffering under some species
of torture different from the others ; signs which must have produced a
garment variegated in its effect, but terrible to contemplate or to wear.
More happily inspired was a still more extraordinary specimen of silk weav-
ing, executed by Didier, Petit & Co. This was a portrait of Jacquard, rep-
resenting him in his workshop, surrounded by his implements and engaged
in the construction of the machinery which thus rendered its testimony to
the genius of its inventor. This work, entitled, "Hommage a J. M. Jac-
quard," was woven, "says one who saw it," with such truth and delicacy
as to resemble a fine line engraving. In 1803 Messrs. Norris & Co. exhibited
at the International Exhibition a Spitalfields loom, weaving a rich damask
from a design by the late Owen Jones. There were 29,088 warp threads,
the design, when woven, being twenty-eight inches long and requiring 9,312
cards, weighing five and one-half hundredweights for its formation. To
cut these cards, the design on ruled paper measured sixteen feet by nine
feet three inches. Portraits and pictures have frequently been produced of
such artistic character that they had all the appearance of fine engravings.
Another very interesting piece of weaving on the Jacquard was de-
signed by a Mr. Balfour and manufactured by the Messrs. Dewar at the
Bothwell factory, Dunfermline, about fifty years ago — namely, the "Cri-
mean Hero Tablecloth." A cloth of this pattern was exhibited at the dis-
play given by the textile Exhibitors' Association in Mechanics' Hall, Boston,
in 1909.
"The designing and executing of the work occupied about eight months
and occasioned an outlay of nearly $'3,000. The cloth is composed of the
finest linen warp and white silk weft, six and a half yards in length and
three in breadth ; but w|hen woven for sale it would consist of linen only.
The pattern consists of a beautifully elaborate leafy scroll-work for border,
in which, at proper intervals, are inserted twenty-four faithful portraits.
In one border is Her Majesty Queen Victoria in the centre, and on either
side are the Prince Consort and the Duke of Cambridge. In the other end
border is the Emperor Napoleon in the centre, and on either side is the
Empress Eugenia and Prince Napoleon. In the centre of one of the side
borders is placed the King of Sardinia, and on either side Bosquet, Brown,
Florence Nightingale, La Marmora, St. Arnaud, Dardigan, Raglan and
Bruat. In the other side border, the Sultan in the centre, with Omar
Pasha, Williams, Canrobert, Evans, Campbell, Pelissier, Lyons and Simp-
son on either side. Each portrait of the sovereigns is surmounted with
their respective armorial bearings, placed towards the middle of the cloth ;
and alternately with these are trophies containing the names of the chief
battles with their dates, and in the centre of the cloth there are magnificent
trophies illustrative of the fall of Sebastopol, with the motto "Deus proteget
justitiam" and the date, 8th September, 1855 ; the ground around all of
r34 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
these being interspersed with the stars and orders of the different sov-
ereigns, etc., etc.
"An idea may be formed of the extent of the design when it is men-
tioned that there were 50,000 cards and seven 600-cord Jacquard machines
employed in forming the pattern on each loom. These machines are re-
quired to be kept in operation at the same instant, and the whole was put
in motion by a single movement of the foot. The web was 1,600 threads
in the reed, equal to 4,800 threads per yard, or a total number of 14,400
in the breadth of the cloth."
Much more of vast interest might be written in regard to the capabili-
ties of the Jacquard machine, but we must now give some account of the
development of machines for automatic weaving. The application of power
to the weaving of ordinary webs developed along a different line. So early
as 1678 a machine for making "linen cloth without the aid of a workman"
was invented by M. de Gennes, a French naval officer, and was figured
and described in the French Journal des Scavans. M. Vaucanson's loom of
1745 embodied several improvements on that of De Gennes and fore-
shadowed the Jacquard; in fact, had M. Vaucanson been acquainted with
the fly shuttle, which was then known and used at least in England, he
would no doubt have come down to fame as the inventor of both the power
loom and the Jacquard. "This loom is of full size and is now carefully
preserved in the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, at Paris. It not only
is provided with his improvements on M. Ponchou's invention, by which
he "suppressed altogether the cumbrous tail-cards of the draw loom and
made the loom completely self-acting by placing the pierced paper or card
upon the surface of a large pierced cylinder, which travelled backwards and
forwards at each stroke and revolved through a small angle by ratchet work.
He also invented the rising and falling griffe and thus brought the ma-
chine very nearly resembling the actual Jacquard, but it contains a friction
roller taking-up motion. These two inventions are now in common use."
The next attempt to produce a power loom was made by Robert and Thomas
Barber, of Nottingham, who took out a patent in 1774, No. 1083, for "Ma-
chinery for preparing, spinning and weaving fibrous substances," etc. In
this loom the "picking shafts, with the sticks, cams and studs, are arranged
the same as in the most approved modern looms, although they act by wind-
ing up and releasing springs as in some excellent looms now in use." (Bar-
low's "History of Weaving.") But it does not seem that this loom ever
came into practical use, and, although from time to time power looms made
their appearance, the practical adoption of machines for automatic weaving
was deferred for upwards of forty years. But a great step towiirds the
application of a motive power to weaving had been accomplished by the
invention of the fly shuttle and the addition of the "tappet shaft" to the
Dutch loom, and the spinners could not supply yarn in sufficient quantities
to keep the looms running. The demand led to the grand series of inven-
OF THE UNITED STATES 13S
tions used in spinning, and so amply was the deficiency supplied that it was
soon evident that the weavers would be unable to keep pace with the pro-
duction of yarn. But necessity was ever the mother of invention. In 1784
Dr. Edmund Cartwright, a learned divine, as well as a scientific agricul-
turist, was led, in a conversation with some Manchester gentlemen, to con-
sider the idea of inventing what he termed a "weaving mill." We will give
the account of his procedure in his own words, as given in a letter to his
friend, Mr. Bannatyne: "Some little time afterwards a particular circum-
stance recalling this conversation to my mind, it struck me that, as in plain
weaving, according to the conception I then had of the business, there could
only be three movements, which were to follow each other in succession,
there would ne little difficulty in producing and repeating them. Full of
these ideas, I immediately employed a carpenter and smith to carry them
into effect. As soon as the machine was finished, I got a weaver to put in
the warp, which was of such materials as sailcloth is usually made of. To
my great delight a piece of cloth, such as it was, was the product. As I
had never before turned my thoughts to anything mechanical, either in
theory or practice, nor had even seen a loom at work, or knew anything
of its construction, you will readily suppose that my first loom was a most
rude piece of machinery. The warp was placed perpendicularly, the reed
fell with the weight of at least half a hundredweight, and the springs which
threw the shuttle were strong enough to throw a congreve rocket. In short,
it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a
slow rate, and only for a short time. Conceiving in my great simplicity
that I had accomplished all that was required, I then secured wliat I thought
was a most valuable property by a patent — 4th of April, 1785. This being
done, I then condescended to see how other people wove, and you will guess
my astonishment when I compared their easy modes of operation with mine.
Availing myself, however, of what I then saw, I made a loom, in its gen-
eral principles nearly as they are now made. But it was not until the year
1787 that I completed my invention, when I took out my last weaving patent,
August first in that year." (See sketch of Dr. Cartwright, Ibid.)
In 1786 the inventor had established a weaving and spinning factory
at Doncaster, in which free scope could be given to every description of
mechanical experiment, but after spending thirty thousand pounds in the
enterprise, he was compelled to abandon it in 1793. In 1791 Dr. Cartwright
contracted with Messrs. Grimshaw, of Manchester, for the use of four hun-
dred of his looms. A mill was built for the purpose, and twenty-four of
the machines were set to work, but shortly afterwards the factory was
burned down, it is supposed by a mob. To this unfortunate circumstance
Dr. Cartwright ascribed the origin of his misfortune, for he became unable
to prevent the infringement of his patents. His loom even then contained
many features which were highly ingenious, though quite impracticable as
he developed them, but which have since been brought to perfection by more
136 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
practical inventors. One of these was a device for the automatic stopping
of the loom on the breaking of a warp thread, and the principle upon which
the contrivance is based is now applied to the warping frame. In his various
patents he described a method for stopping the loom on the breaking of a
weft thread, and also let-off and take-up motions for the warp and cloth
beams. But so manifold were the imperfections and crudities of the Cart-
wright loom that (we quote Mr. G. C. Gilroy) "it is certain that this ma-
chine would have long since passed into oblivion had it not been for the
improvements made upon it by other men of genius." Inventors who fol-
lowed the doctor confined themselves to motions that were absolutely neces-
sary, but, even so, it took twenty years of untiring effort to prove that the
power loom possessed any advantages over the hand loom. Many of these
attempts proved impracticable, being worked by a crank, as Richard Gor-
ton's, 179T, and Stephen Dolignon's "loom to weave by a machine rocking
to and fro by gravity."
Some that were more successful were : Andrew McKinlock's power
loom, which, with the assistance of a carpenter and clockmaker, he set up
in Glasgow in 179.V This machine was propelled by hand power, and he
later built forty of the machines, in which he had made some slight im-
provements. These same looms were working at Pollockshaws and Paisley
in 1845, when the inventor was still living at the age of eighty-five. Also
Robert Miller's power loom, long known as the "wiper loom," from the
circumstance that the picking and treadle motions were worked by cams
which were called "wipers," and for which he obtained a patent in 1796.
Mr. Monteith erected two hundred of the^e looms at Pollockshaws in 1801.
Then, in 1803, William Horrocks invented a loom which afterwards came
into very general use. Mr. Horrocks was accused of having appropriated
a take-up motion embodied in a hand loom invented by Mr. Radcliffe in
1802, and which was known as the "Dandy loom;" the motion, in fact, was
one embodied in Vaucanson's invention of 1745, had they but known it.
In 1805 a large power-weaving factory was erected by James Finlay
& Co, at Catrine in Ayr.shire. Indeed, power looms were being set up every-
where, and by 1813 there were 2,400 power looms in operation in Great
Britain, but hitherto they had shown no advantage over hand looms, and by
some it was predicted that they would never prove of any service. The
weaving of textile by machinery was, however, progressing towards ulti-
mate success, and in 1820 it was estimated that there were 12,150 power
looms in operation in England and 2,000 in Scotland. A little over fifty
years later the number had increased to 700,000.
Meanwhile, in the colonies, the art of weaving was progressing stead-
ily. Most of the early immigrants being mechanics, a fair proportion of
them were necessarily weavers or fullers, and we find records of the early
establishment of small centres of the weaving industry. In 1767 we learn
that 17,000 yards of cloth were manufactured in East Hartford, Conn., and
OF THE UNITED STATES 137
in the same year they were making broadcloth, serges, tammys, shalloons,
camblets, figured stuffs, etc., at Scitiiate, Mass.
In 1764 a society was formed in New York, styled : "The Society for
the Promotion of Arts, Agriculture and Economy," the object of the society
being "the encouragement, to the utmost, of the manufacture of linen."
From its inception, the society ofl'ered premiums for both the raw and manu-
factured goods.
Silk goods were not manufactured for sale, but they were woven for
home use by several ladies ; the stuffs, however, for lack of proper knowl-
edge of the preparation of the raw material, were crude, being fuzzy as
well as stiflF. "In 1770 Mrs. Susanna Wjight, at Columbia, Lancaster
County, Pa., made a piece of mantua, sixty yards in length, from her own
cocoons, and it was afterwards worn as a court dress by the queen of Great
Britain."
In 1775 a society was formed in Philadelphia, having for its object
the promotion of the weaving and spinning industries ; and a factory was
established for the production of woolen and cotton cloths, which was
closed in September, 1777, when the British occupied Philadelphia. On the
evacuation by the British troops, the buildings and machinery lay idle for
some time and were later put into operation by Samuel Wetherall. Such
was the state of the weaving industry in 1776. The patriotic spirit of the
people soon, however, gave an impetus to the infant industry, and woolen,
cotton and silk mills sprang up everywhere.
In 1812 Thomas R. Wililiams, a watchmaker of Newport, set up his
first power loom in the factory of Rowland Hazard, in Newport, R. I. ; this
was "a rotary loom for weaving boot, suspenders and girth weribing." But,
although Mr. Taft, in his "Notes," says of them: "It is most probable
that they were the first power looms successfully operated in America," we
have the evidence of Air. Isaac Hazard that they were "so imperfect that
they did not make the web eqtial to that produced by hand, and the business
did not succeed." Improvements in machinery were, however, constantly
being made in looms, this being the experimental stage of power weaving
both in England and America.
In the year 1810 Francis Cabot Lowell visited the factories of Eng-
land arid Scotland with the purpose of studyinig the methods employed there
and also the machinery. Mr. Lowell returned to America with his notes
and drawings in 1812 and began the construction of a power loom, in which
he was aided by Patrick Jackson. The first Lowell loom Was operated by
means of a crank turned by a man. The next three years were spent in per-
fecting a loom for which a patent was issued to Lowell and Jackson, Feb-
ruary 23, 1S15, and the looms were ,«et up in the factory of the Boston
Manufacturing Company at Waltham, Mass. A subject for constant in-
vention in the new power looms were the temples, it being a matter of great
importance to make the temples automatic. Dr. Cartwright was the first
138 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
to attempt to accomplish this; he apphed to his loom (1786) temples closed
by a spring and opened by the motion of the treadles. In 1805 Thomas ■
Johnson, the same who was employed by Mr. Radcliffe, obtained a patent
for rotary temples formed like bevelled wheels, with pins in the edges to
hold the cloth distended; in 1816 Ira Draper, of Weston, Mass., also in-
vented a rotary temple, which was patented January 7, 1816; he obtained
a patent for improvements upon it in 1829. These temples came quickly
into general use in this country, and the Draper Company now furnishes
practically all of the loom temples used in the United States.
In the following year, 1816, the power loom was introduced into Rhode
Island by William Gilmour, a machinist from Glasgow, Scotland. He was
employed by Judge Lyman to construct a power loom for the Lyman Cot-
ton Manufacturing Company. This was the loom invented by William
Horrocks, of Stockport, England, and was first patented in 1803 and then
improved and re-patented in 1805 and 181 3; it was known in this country
as the "Scotch loom." Twelve of these looms were put into successful
operation in the Lyman Mills in 1817. Judge Lyman's policy in regard to
this loom was unusually liberal; he allowed the use of all his drawings by
other mall owners, the result being that power looms were rapidly introduced
into all the cotton mills of the country. As a mark of gratitude to Gil-
mour for the introduction into this country of the power loom, the cotton
manufacturers of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut subscribed
$15,000 as a purse for him.
From this time on the wo.olen and cotton weaving industries of the
United States progressed rapidly towards the high standing they possess
lo-day. A loom for the production of figured fabrics was the next hugely
important addition to textile power machinery, for up to this time power
looms had produced only plain fabrics. In 1837 came to these shores from
the cradle of the cotton industry, Lancashire, England, one William Cromp-
ton, by trade a weaver, by genius an inventor, who, at the suggestion of
his employers, Messrs. Crocker & Richmond, Taunton, Mass., and aided
by their American enterprise, produced at their mills a power loom for
weaving figured cotton fabrics, for which he obtained a patent in 1839.
It was the finst of its kind in the world ; and when, at the suggestion of Sam-
uel Lawrence, of the IMiddlesex Mills, Lowell, he applied the principle of
his loom to the weaving of fancy worsted cassimeres, material which had
never before been produced on any but hand looms, the importance of his
contribution to the textile art was enhanced beyond estimation. The looms
were manufactured principally at Worcester, Mass. On the lapse of the
fir.st patents an extension of them was granted for seven years to the in-
ventor's son, the late George Crompton. In 1S56 an open-shed loom was
invented by Lucius J. Knowles, and forty years later the Crompton- Knowles
Loom Company was incorporated. (See Plate 8.)
PLATE VIII— Loom
Furnished throiigli the courtesy ot Crompton & Knowles Loom Works.
t/AMES H LAMB CQ.
OF THE UNITED STATES 139
Space will not permit us to mention the improvements that have from
time to time been attempted or perfected by numerous inventors since the
invention of the power loom by Dr. Cartwright; probably the most im-
portant that has been effected since the weft-fork (Clinton & Gilroy) and
grid-stop motion, the automatic let-off motions and parallel shuttle motions
is that embodied in the Northrup loom — namely, a device for changing fill-
ing in the shuttle, with which was incorporated a warp stop-motion. This
was the invention of James H. Northrup, an Englishman who came to the
United States in 1881. Mr. Northrup, who had previously invented the
Northrup Spooler Guide, first produced a shuttle-changing device and ap-
plied it successfully to looms of the Draper Company at Hopedale, Mass.
His idea of changing the filling instead of the shuttle began to take shape
in 1889, and under the auspices of the Draper Company he continued his
experiments and brought his idea into practical shape in April, 1890, when
a completely new loom was devised, incorporating his new improvements
and various others, and the Northrup loom has since taken a leading place
both at home and in many foreign countries. American inventors have
been particularly prolific in the production of many kinds of devices for the
improvement of textile machinery.
The weaving of silk was attempted between 1828 and 1844 by the
Mansfield Silk Co., but these etiforts resulted in failure. This, however,
was retrieved by their successors and others, so that in 1850 there were, in
various parts of the United States, sixty-seven establishments reported as
manufacturing silk goods, and America is now (1911) the second country
in the world in the production of woven silk materials. One striking feature
of this industry is the marked increase in the use of power looms and the
decrease in that of hand looms. Credit is due to the silk manufacturers
of the United States for being the first to produce silk taffetas by power
looms, an innovation which was so successful as to be copied later in
Europe ; the importance of this improvement is shown by the fact that one-
half the product of the silk looms in the United States come under the head
of "taffetas."
The application of electric and pneumatic power to looms will properly
be treated of in the article specially pertaining to machinery. The art of
weaving has now become so systeipatized that we are apt to regard it as
a mechanical operation rather than as an art. Perfect as are the materials
put out from the factories of to-day, they cannot excel the products of the
looms of the ancients, nor those of the middle ages, and with some of them
they cannot even compare. In this utilitarian age, however, quantity as
well as quality is a desideratum.
A notable exception in this respect must however be made in regard
to Japan, where the textile art acquired a very high degree of perfection
ages ago. In old Japan, it was the custom for each noble to have his
private looms for weaving brocades for the wear of himself and his fam-
140 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
ily, and also the less costly fabrics in which his retainers were clothed. The
robes manufactured for the Court at Kyoto and Yedo were supplied only
by the imperial looms. The common fabrics, such as towels and dusters,
often displayed very artistic designs — a flight of birds, a branch of blos-
soms, etc. Japan has made immense progress in the textile art during re-
cent years, and in no branch of applied art does her decorative genius show
to better effect than in her textile fabrics, and, unlike other ancient nations,
the art of weaving has not fallen into decadence in that country. The wpven
and embroidered stuffs of Japan have always been beautiful, but in former
times, with the exception of hangings for the temples and for the drapings
of festival cars, few pieces of size or splendor were produced. But of late
years, arras of immense size, showing remarkable workmanship and
grand combinations of colors, are now manufactured at Kyoto. Kawashima,
of that place, inaugurated this new departure by reproducing a gobelin, but
it may now be safely asserted that no gobelin will bear comparison with the
pieces produced in Japan. The fashion of weaving, which has been in
use for three hundred years, is called "tsuzure-ori" or "linked weaving;"
the cross threads are laid in with the fingers and pushed into their places
with a comb by hand, very little machinery being used. The threads ex-
ten3 only to the outlines of each figure, so that every part of the pattern
has a rim of minute holes, like the pierced lines between postage stamps,
the effect bemg that the design seems to be suspended in the ground. A
recent example of this nature required two years of incessant labor, with
relays of workmen working steadily throughout the twenty- four hours. This
piece, manufactured by Kawashima's weavers, measured twenty by thir-
teen feet, and we quote the following description of it. "It represented the
annual festival at the Nikko mausolea. The chief shrine was shown; the
gate and long flight of stone steps leading up to it, several other buildings,
the groves of cryptomeria that surround the mausolea, and the festival
procession. All the architectural and decorative details, all the carvings and
colors, all the accessories — everything was wrought in silk, and each of
the 1,500 figures forming the procession wore exactly appropriate costume.
Even this wealth of detail, remarkable as it was, seemed less surprising than
the fact that the weaver had succeeded in producing the effect of atmos-
phere and of aerial perspective. Through the graceful cryptomeria, dis-
tant mountains and the still more distant skies could be seen, and between
the buildings in the foreground and those in the middle distance atmos-
phere appeared to be perceptible." The fabric next to tsuzure-ori, in deco-
rative value, is that styled yuzen birodo, or "cut velvet." Dyeing by the
yuzen process is quite modern. The design is painted on the fabric, after
which the latter is steamed and the picture is ultimately fixed by methods
which are kept secret." Silken fabrics are preferred for this style of deco-
ration. When cut velvet is the material, the yuzen process is supplemented
by the work of the cutter, whose tool is a small, sharp chisel wlith a V-shaped
OF THE UNITED STATES
141
point with which he carves into the pattern as though he were shading the
lines of the design with a steel pencil, the edge of the tool never being al-
lowed to trespass upon a line "which the exigencies of the design require
to be solid. The veining of a cherry petal, the tesselation of the scales of
a carp, the serrated edge of a leaf, these remain intact, while the leaf itself,
or the scales of the fish or the petal, have the threads forming them cut,
so as to show the velvet nap and to appear in soft low relief. The elaborate
and microscopically correct pictures produced by the yuzen process are bet-
ter displayed on silk crape or habutaye. The rich-toned, soft plumage of
birds, or the blending of the colors in a branch of chrysanthemums or
peonies cannot be produced with like fidelity on the unequal surface of
velvet.
A very interesting survival of the mediaeval style of weaving still exists
in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries, and table covers, counterpanes
and articles of dress are woven by the peasantry in a simple but highly deco-
rative way, many of the patterns being of great artistic beauty.
142 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE ART OF KNITTING
There is great uncertainty as to the origin of the art of knitting by
hand : the period, the country, and the author of the invention are not
known beyond a doubt. Some authorities claim Scotland as the birthplace
of this industry at a date somewhat earlier than 1500. There is no historic
mention of the art until the time of Henry IV and it was first named in
an act of Parliament in the reign of Henry VII; and in seven following
Acts, knit hose, caps, and also hosiers were mentioned ; the latter might,
it is true, have been the fashioners of the earliest hose, which were made
of cloth sewn to the proper shape. Knitted hose cannot, however, have
come into general use, or perhaps the common woolen hose was too coarse
for the king's wear, for it is on record that Henry VIII himself wore hose
fashioned from woven materials, "except there came from Spain, by great
chance, a pair of silk stockings." This circumstance and the fact that
Sir Thomas Gresham presented the young King Edward VI with a pair
of silk stockings which probably came from the same country, gave rise to
the idea that the art originated in Spain or that the Spaniards might have
acquired it from the Moors. But as knitted woolen caps were commonly
worn in England in the reign of Henry VII, and there is no evidence
that the Spanish stockings worn by the succeeding monarchs were knitted,
the preponderance of evidence still remains in favor of Scotland. Then
again, Stowe, the historian, states that "in 1564, one William Riley,
apprentice to Master Thomas Burdett, having seen in the shop of an Italian
merchant, a pair of knit worsted stockings from Mantua, borrowed them
and made a pair exactly like them, and these are said to have been the
first stockings of woolen yarn knit in England ;" but it is said that worsted
stockings were made at that time in England, and that they were very
likely silk stockings which young Riley imitated and which were worn by
the Earl of Pembroke.
In 1560, we are told of Elizabeth, that "Mrs. Montague, her highness's
silk-woman, presented the queen with a pair of black silk knit stockings,
which after a few days' wearing pleased her highness so much that she
sent to Mrs. Montague for more. The queen, who was not ignorant of
the attraction of a smart-looking foot and ankle, liked them so that she
would not henceforth wear any more cloth hose," and we learn that in
1578, at the pageant exhibited to Queen Elizabeth at Norwich, were
portrayed: "Looms for worsteds, for russets, for darnix, for mockads, for
lace, for caffa, and for fringe ; and upon the stage at one end stood eight
OF THE UNITED STATES 143
small women children spinning worsted yarn, and at the other end many
knitting worsted hose."
About 1589, an invention truly wonderful considering the state of
manufacturing at that period was produced by William Lee, a curate in
the parish of Calverton, about five miles from Nottingham. This was a
stocking frame, which was probably the first automatic machine for the
purposes of manufacture.
Mr. Lee was engaged for about three years in perfecting his invention,
with the assistance of his brother and some skilled artisans of Nottingham,
and in the year 1589, it was completed and was put into operation and
worked for about two years. But becoming aware of a prejudice against
it, he removed it to London, where it was set up in Bunhill Fields, St. Lukes.
Here Mr. Lee met with varying success, and as he had expended the
greater portion of his patrimony and even endured much privation while
employed upon his loom, in order to secure some profit from it he endeavored
to obtain a patent for it from Queen Elizabeth, who went to his lodgings
accompanied by Lord Hunsdon, and there saw it worked by Lee or his
brother. She was disappointed when she found it knitting coarse Worsted
instead of silk hose and refused to grant the patent, although urged to
do so by Hunsdon.
In 1598, Mr. Lee succeeded in making a machine that produced silk
stockings. His friend. Lord Hunsdon, dying, Lee fell into deep melancholy,
and being invited to France by the minister of Henry IV, he went, taking his
machines with him. Before he could establish himself in business, the
king was assassinated and Lee died in Paris, in 1610. His brother, James Lee,
who was at that time in Rouen, where they intended to carry on the
manufacture, went to Paris and found that his brother was dead and buried.
He returned to Rouen and with the seven workmen who had gone over
with the machines, he recrossed to London. One of the looms, however,
was left at Rouen with two of the workmen who desired to remain there,
hoping to profit from Lee's privilege. One of these men soon died, the
"other worked on his unimproved loom for forty years."
The looms brought back to London were set up in Old Street Square,
and formed the foundation of the "London Hosiery Manufacture." The
machines in a short time were sought after and sold, and Mr. James Lee
went to Nottingham, where he went into partnership with one of his
brother's old acquaintances, named Aston, and began to make new frames
in 1620, when Aston made a very important improvement in the machine
by dispensing with a set of "sinkers."
In 1 62 1, the Venetian ambassador in London paid Mr. James Lee
five hundred pounds, for a machine, and the release of an apprentice to go
with it. But the Venetian smiths were unequal to the business of building or
even repairing a stocking frame, and the enterprise failed. From this time
144 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
forward, the business of stocking weaving rapidly extended, London,
Godalming and Nottinghamshire being the chief centres of the industry.
A union was formed early in the seventeenth century under the title
of the London Framework Knitter's Company, for regulating wages and
opposing knitters who had failed to serve an apprenticeship. In 1640,
there were at Nottingham two master hosiers who purchased country-made
goods, the machines being leased by the knitters and the work done in
their cottages. The manufacture spread, and silk, worsted and cotton
hose were made also in Leicestershire and Derbyshire. Much prejudice
existed against machine-wrought hose, but in spite of this the trade grew
and prospered. Owing to their grievances against a stocking maker,
named Pickards, the "London Knitters' Company" applied to Cromwell
the Protector for a charter; alleging that "Pickard taught his art to
anyone for money; made under-fashioned and unsound hose; and of
slightly twisted yarns." The Charter of Incorporation was granted in
1657, and it empowered the company, "to make laws consistent with the
custom of London, of which city they might choose any citizen as a
member ; might levy fines by distress, and search for and prove any frame-
work knitted goods; and if found ill-made or of deceitful stuff, cut them
to pieces." It was also ordered that no frames should be exported. Every
stocking maker was to become a member of the company or pay five
pounds weekly until he did so. A second charter with extended powers was
granted to the company by Charles II in 1660, and yet a third in 1686,
which extended all previous and some further powers to Ireland, where
many frames were at work. More than four hundred frames having been
exported, a fine was levied on the removal of one without notice, and all
were numbered, which stopped the exportation. In 1695, there were 1,500
frames in and near London. In 1727 there were 2,500 frames in and
around London and 55,000 in the provinces. But many of them were
unemployed, a circumstance which was largely due to the taking of an
undue number of apprentices. A man in Nottingham had on an average
twenty-five apprentices, and did not employ a journeyman for a period of
thirty years. Cartwright, who had twenty-three, and Fellows, who had
forty-nine apprentices, removed their frames from London to Nottingham
in 1 7 10, in consequence of frame-breaking having taken place in London.
The London Company fined Cartwright one hundred and fifty pounds and
Fellows, four hundred pounds, and on their refusal to pay, their machinery
was sold ; but the legality of the proceedings being disputed, the authority
of the company was overthrown by a committee of the House of Commons
in 1753. ^s tending to a monopoly hurtful to trade, and the rulings of the
company had effect only in London.
In 1730, the first stockings of cotton yarn were made. Up to the
year 1750, no attempt had been made to add machinery to the stocking-frame
"50 as to vary the face of the web, but in that year a sliding tuck pressure
OF THE UNITED STATES 145
was applied. Hand knit-ribbed hose were much worn because of their
closely fitting the leg, and efforts to produce this ribbing effect on the
stocking-frame were unsuccessfully made by several. Woolett, a hosier
at Derby, brought this question to the notice of his brother-in-law, Jedediah
Strutt, who added to the Lee stocking- frame an apparatus termed the
"Derby rib machine." in which the principle was introduced of "operating
upon any one or more of the loops or meshes of a web, by the addition of
an independent selecting apparatus." The importance of this new device
was not recognized at first, its simplicity and the ease with which it could
be applied to the stocking frame prevented its full merit from being
discerned, but it contained the fundamental principle of all subsequent
methods for alternating or altering the course of threads at work on either
lace or hosiery machinery, and consequently the face of the webs and texture
of patterns introduced into them.
This new and ingenious device did not require any alteration of Lee's
stocking- frame; it was wholly and simply an addition to it. The Derby rib
machine consisted of an apparatus constructed of iron, in which needles like
those in the ordinary frame were placed perpendicularly, so as to enter
between the horizontal ones of Lee's frame. This apparatus is hung on
jointed arms in front of the frame, and by its swinging motion the needles
of the new machine are caused to "enter between the old ones, penetrating
only those loops which are to form the ribs ; and these, passing under their
beards, are reversed, and then pressed again, passing over the needle heads
with the other loops, but with the visible parts of the ribbing loops turned
the other way. The ribs may be varied in width from one and one, i. e.,
every other loop, as in sock tops, to any number required by the weavers."
Patents were granted to Woolett and Strutt in 1758-9, and their
business grew very rapidly. The success of the invention, when its
advantages began to be fully comprehended, was such that it incited other
ingenious men to effort, and numerous further inventions were the result.
Many of these were really infringements and actions were brought with
success against associations of hosiers, and the patent rights were secured.
Strutt's principle of control and selection, variously modified and applied,
produced in succession the knotted, twilled, stump, mesh, and point net
machines. "In the warp frame," writes W. F. Felkin, in his history of the
Hosiery and Lace Manufacture, "where no weft thread is used, but each
warp thread loops sideways on its neighbor, every needle, in its wide
horizontal range, can be similarly selected and governed in its action. Thus,
not only did fancy hosiery modifications cause a large and growing
increase of production, but all the machine-wrought plain and fancy lace
manufacturers of England and the Continent owe their rise and much of
their extension and value to the example set in the added mechanism of
Strutt."
In 1764, Morris and Betts obtained a patent for making a machine
146 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
fixed to a stocking-frame, eyelet holes or net work, having an additional
row of frame tickler needles. The new device was in reality the production
of Butterworth, a stocking weaver at Mansfield, who was robbed of the
fruits of his talent and labor by those who pretended to aid him.
Mr. Crane, of Edmonton, in 1775, effected a most important modifica-
tion of the stocking- frame — namely, the application of a warp to the
stocking-frame — this invention gave rise to numerous devices and applica-
tions for the production of fancy webs and patterns. Among the various
modifications of the stocking-frame for the purpose of producing open or
figured work, perhaps that best worthy of mention is the device of William
Dawson, a framework knitter of Leicester, who conceived that "the edge
of a wheel might be notched in such a manner that when rolled over the
parts controlling the figure it would act upon them accordingly and produce
a similar effect to the use of pegs in a barrel organ." The wheels were
well adapted for circular machines and are to this day known as Dawson's
wheels. This clever inventor patented in 1791 "a machine for making all
kinds of hosiery." When the patent expired he craved an extension of it,
which, being denied him, he took his life. Else and Hammond eliminated
the tuck presser and substituted therefor a sliding needle bar and a side
motion for which they received a patent; then in 1769, R. Frost produced
a figured net on a stocking loom by a device which will be later explained
in the article pertaining to lace. Ross produced in 1767 a velvet pile on
the frame by cutting rows of slack loops; Crane patented in 1769, a method
of producing handsome brocades using a cylinder roller and drawboy in
selecting the needles. In 1771 and 1776, March and Horton took out
patents for knotted hosiery and double-looped work. This was the invention
of Horton, who was perfectly acquainted with the mechanism of the stock-
ing-frame, and seeing a workman making a tuck stitch diamond on the hand
of a glove, he proceeded to use Lindsey's tickler frame on Else's plan
with his own adjustments. He improved his machine in 1776 and obtained
another patent. "He succeeded in knotting every loop of the web, thus
making an elastic and sound fabric that would not rive when the thread
was broken." This hosiery came greatly into demand and was largely
used for over half a century, being a most excellent and durable article.
Napoleon's colleague. Consul Lebrun, constructed one of these frames for
making fine knotted hose at his stocking factory in France, and in 1795
one thousand frames barely supplied the demand for it in England.
In 1776, Brockley, a poor Nottingham stockinger, devised an imitation
of Horton's knotted hosiery; these goods were called twilled, and as they
were non-elastic soon passed out of use, but he is said to have "effected an
important alteration in the web ; which was made with a silk web outwards,
by carrying a cotton thread behind, thus making it a double-looped fabric,
known as platted work ; and so long as the back was of twister two threads
cotton yarn, the articles wore well." The machines gave employment to
OF THE UNITED STATES 147
many persons, until the fancy for platted work passed away. Robert Ash
patented in 1781, a plan for making "fastened platted work," which was
an elastic twilled fabric. In 1790, an improvement on Ash's invention was
patented by one Hague. This was called the mesh machine. The goods
made on these machines were called elastics. In 1784, Webbe, of Birming-
ham, patented a simplification of the Derby ribbing frame; three hundred of
these machines were worked for some years at Banff with great profit.
Rhamboldt took plans of this machine to France where many machines were
constructed after it.
In 1788, Holland, a London hosier, obtained a patent for the manu-
facture of fleecy hosiery vests and drawers, as being medicinally beneficial.
In 1790 and 1792, he took out further patents, and his house had a celebrity
among medical men and the public at large.
There were no further improvements of any importance up to the
year 1800. In spite, however, of the various improvements which had been
effected in the stocking frame, wages remained moderate; efforts were
made by the Midland Stocking Makers' Mutual Protection Society (which
had been formed in 1777) to confine the employment of girl and boy
apprentices within proper limits, and they were influential enough to elect
a Mr. Abel Smith, as member of the House of Commons for Nottingham,
and in 1778 a petition to the House from the frame-workers asking for
an act to regulate and settle wages which was voted down. A further
reduction being threatened, the bill was again presented and again rejected,
which was the signal for riots at Nottingham, frames were broken, homes
mobbed, the Riot Act read, and the military called out, and these riots were
repeated continually within the next few years.
Trade revived somewhat at the close of the war with the American
Colonies, and the wages in the hosiery business increased. At this time,
there were in the United Kingdom 20,000 stocking-frames. In 1812, the
number of frames had increased to 29,632 in Great Britain and 13,189 on the
continent. A demand for knitted hose, underdrawers and gloves for the
army, which arose in the early part of the nineteenth century, gave relief
to the trade; but it was so small as to be almost ineffectual; the harvests
had for several seasons past been bad and "work at any price" was
demanded by thousands of suffering knitters, and frames were again broken,
one thousand in and around Nottingham alone. Bills for the relief of
the stockingers passed the Commons, but were rejected by the Lords, and
further riots broke out followed by strikes and by great misery among the
stocking weavers ; this continued for some years.
An impulse was given to the trade at Leicester by the application of
Dawson's eccentric wheels which enabled the manufacturers to produce
innumerable articles from stout woolen webs for breeches, pieces and
gloves, braces, cravats, and sashes, to the finest and lightest fancy silk or
cotton tissues and nets ; woolen and cotton socks had begun to be made in
148 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
that city in 1810, woolen shirts became an important item there in 1815;
and cotton and spun silk drawers and vests at Nottingham, and they have
been largely manufactured there up to the present time.
In 1816, Sir M. I. Brunei, whose attention had been drawn to the
manufacture of hosiery and lace, so that he was well acquainted with the
machinery employed in it, invented a round stocking frame so devised as
to employ no one of Lee's instruments except the needle; it embodied Lee's
principle, it is true, but was altogether different in construction and use. It
is a circular machine, small enough to be attached to a lady's work table,
produces a seamless sack ; and can make the loops of stockings faster than
the eye can follow it, and was destined to become one of the cheapest and
most effective looms the world has ever seen. Brunei called his machine
the "tricoteur" and was granted a patent for it in 1816. The diameter
of the circle round which the needles are placed may be made large enough
to knit a circular web of any size, even a carpet. The work is continuous
and therefore expeditious, the first row of stitches being made like those
in the ordinary knitting frame. From 1825, strenuous and persistent effort
had been applied to adjust hosiery machinery so as to be run by rotary
hand power. This having been successfully accomplished, the application
of steam power followed and the factory system was established. As
progressive steps leading to the perfection of the wide frame, the industry
is indebted to the machines constructed by Warner, 1829; Mather, 183 1 ;
Foote, 1835 ; Cope, 1836; Coteman, 1837. Luke Barton's and Paget's rotary
modifications of the Lee Fran'te being worthy of especial mention.
The thread carrier, a necessary appliance for increasing the speed of
all wide frames was the invention of one of two stocking weavers. Sadlers
and Roe; or was possibly the work of both. The course of invention in
regard to the knitted goods trade has been arduous and costly, and it is
impossible to give in detail the many inventions that have been claimed ;
we will mention only the more striking modifications. Thornton took out
three patents for coarse looped work, which was a very close imitation of
hand-knitting, and was continuously in good demand.
The tumbler needle, a most curious and useful invention, was one of
several patented by Townsend, who was originally a frame knitter, and
then a hosier at Leicester, England, and eventually in the United States",
where he was eminently successful. The invention "consisted in affixing
on the frame needle a small moving pin, hinged just so far from the hook
as that its point may reach the hook, lying in a spoonlike indent ; and, when
reversed backwards, may lie in a groove, pointing towards the stem of the
hook." This instrument is used largely in England, France, Saxony and
the United States. In 1854, Mine, and Mundella, with, L. Barton, took
out a patent for a wide ribbing machine on which ten hose could be made
at once, an immense increase in production with a corresponding decrease
in labor and expense. One of the first attempts to render the stocking-
OF THE UNITED STATES 149
frame capable of automatically widening or narrowing as necessity arose
was that of F. W. Mowbray, of Leicester.
In 1858, a citizen of the United States, W. C. Gist, took out an English
patent for a circular machine, "to be supplied by any number of feeders up
to eight," where only one had been worked before. By this means, striped
work including sixteen colors may be made at once, and produce on a head
of four inches diameter or twelve inches round three hundred and fifty
courses a minute. This patent right was purchased by Hine, Mundella &
Company, and a modification was at once introduced which rendered Gist's
valuable machine simpler and less expensive. Thomas Thompson who
(against the adverse claims of Pepper, an American inventor, and Appleton,
an Englishman) claimed to be the first to adapt the circular frame so as
to produce ribbed work, upon examining Gist's machine, saw the way to
improve it by using in lieu of the ordinary needle the tumbler needle,
invented by Townsend. This improvement was not patented.
In 1834, an American knitting machine, which had none of Lee's parts
in its construction, was introduced into Manchester, England. The frame
made ten or twelve hose at once. Very hard twisted durable materials
were used on these frames ; they were of coarse gauges, and produced
excellent imitations of the best hand knit work, being more regular in
texture; in 1845, there were six of these frames in operation. These were
called "Wild" machines, probably from the name of their inventor.
The McNary Knitting Machine Company, of Williamsburg, Pa., took
out English patents for improvements in knitting machines in i860. These
machines knitted at the rate of two pairs of complete stockings in nine
minutes. An English patent was taken out in 1863 by Mr. J. G. Wilson, of
New York, for an improvement in knitting machines. Since that time
hosiery machinery has been greatly improved and modified by various
devices and modifications by numerous inventors, both European and
American. To Germantown, Pa., the German frauen carried their domestic
industry of the hand knitting of woolen hose, and before 1775 there were
one hundred and fifty knitting frames at Germantown and in the vicinity
of the Brandywine; in 1815 the number of these had increased to two
hundred ; it is not known when or by whom they were introduced there, and
they were probably used mainly in the homes of the operatives, for they
do not seem to have formed a part of the cloth and flannel making industries,
which early became so prominent in Germantown. Various attempts were
made prior to 1818, to encourage the foundation of the knitting industry
in various parts of the .States; in 1776, the Committee of Safety appropri-
ated three hundred dollars as a bounty to Mr. Coxfender, of Maryland,
Frederick County, if he should establish a stocking factory, and we are
told that the Society of Arts in New York offered a bounty of ten pounds
for the first three stocking- frames of iron set up in that year. Neither of
these bounties were claimed.
150 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
The British government, with jealous anxiety for the welfare of its
textile industries, had prohibited the exportation of stocking machines and
a penalty of forty pounds for so doing was in force up to 1780, after that,
it was increased from time to time until it amounted to a prohibitory duty.
In 1 818, the penalty of exporting lace machinery was five hundred pounds,
and could this not be paid by the offender, he was subject to several
years' transportation. Many of the stockingers and lace weavers who had
been deprived of a means of earning their livelihood because of the Luddite
riots, determined to come to the United States and bring their tools and
implements with them, even though the considerable fines had to be paid.
The first stocking machine which came to New England was smuggled
from Liverpool in 1818, and was set up in Watertown, Mass., at a spot near
the present Etna Mills ; but a part of the machine had been left behind and
occasioned some delay in its use until new parts had been made. It was
used for a couple of years in Watertown, and was then taken to Ipswich
in 1882, by its owners, Benjamin Fewkes and George Warner.
Lace machines were also introduced surreptitiously into the country;
the delicate and essential parts of the machine were brought over concealed
in the personal effects of workmen who had been employed in Heathcoat's
factories, the bulky parts and framework of the machines being made in
America from the drawings of skilled machinists, and a factory was
established at Watertown, Mass., near the Newton boundary in 1820; in
1824, the machines were removed to Ipswich, and were operated by the
Ipswich Lace Company; a rival concern was started in 1828 by the New
England Lace Company, of which Dr. Thomas Manning was one of the
promoters. This company continued its operations until 1832, when they
could no longer obtain a supply of thread fine enough for the manufacture
of lace. Up to that time, thread had been exported from England; the
British government, finding that machines and workmen had come to this
country and that lace was being made here, placed a very heavy export duty
on thread, and allowed the free exportation of lace which killed tRe
industry here. The Boston and Ipswich Lace Company closed its doors m
1827; the New England Lace Company, in 1832.
The lace makers being now out of employment, returned to their
stocking- frames. Many went to Germantown, Pa., where some imported
frames were in use and others to Portsmouth, N. H., while some of the
most skillful remained in Ipswich, and in 1832, two new stocking frames
were made for Mr. Fewkes, the first made in New England, and perhaps the
first made in this country, and he established a stocking factory in a small
shop in Ipswich ; George Warner, Samuel Hunt, Sr., and Charles Bamford,
Sr., each with two machines also began the manufacture of hosiery in the
same town. Timothy Bayley, of Albany, it is said, was the first to apply
power to the Lee frame in this country in 183 1 ; James and Sanford
Peatfield, of Ipswich, had a rotary warp machine in operation in 1834.
OF THE UNITED STATES 151
"The Newburyport Hose Manufacturing Company" is mentioned in the
census report of 1900, as being the only stocking factory in the United
States in 1831, and in 1833, there were, as is shown above, four small
main factories in Ipswich.
It is almost impossible to give an adequate account of the rise and
progress of the industry in this country during the first half of the
nineteenth century, owing to the fact that the knit goods before 1850
consisted largely of woolens and there were no separate statistics concerning
them. Suffice it to say that in 1850 there were only eighty-five establish-
ments in which knit goods were made, using a capital of $554,735, and
producing goods to the amount of $1,028,102. The growth of the industry
from these small beginnings during the following fifty years is almost
marvellous. The census report for 1900 furnished the following facts:
The capital of the combined concerns had increased from •"?544,735, in
1850 to $81,860,604; the establishments had increased from 85 to 921.
In 1900, the total number of spindles engaged in the knitting industry in
the United States was: woolen, 293,979; worsted, 21,194; cotton, 206,698;
while the knitting machines numbered 690,047. Later official figures
show that in 1905 the number of establishments had increased to 1,079, with
an aggregate capital of $106,663,531. While the number of spindles em-
ployed in the industry was : cotton, 300,037 ; woolen, 286,661 ; worsted,
9,664.
The industry in the South is of very recent origin, dating in fact
since 1880, when one establishment was reported. In the census of 1900,
71 establishments were reported, with a production to the value of $5,031,-
336. Twenty-four of these establishments were in North Carolina; 16 in
Georgia; 15 in Virginia; 6 in South Carolina; 4 in Tennessee; 2 in W^est
Virginia ; and one each in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
The Western States in the same report made a showing of 129
establishments with a production amounting to $12,143,150. \\'ith the
exception of eleven in Ohio and two in Mississippi, all these factories have
been established since i860. In 1900, Michigan was the most important
of the Western group, having thirty-two factories with a production of
$2,791,257. \\'isconsin was second with twenty-seven establishments, pro-
duction, $2,486,813. Indiana, which stood sixth in point of establishments
and first in capital, was third in value of products. This state had seven
factories with a capital of $2,728,306; value of production, $2,242,304.
Then came Illinois with fourteen establishments and a production valued
at $2,145,429; Ohio had twenty-four factories and the production amounted
to $1,576,285. None of the other states in this group reported products
valued at over $500,000.
In 1900, the value of the production in this industry in the Middle
States amounted to $60,473,407, and in New England $17,834,673, which
was over ten times the amount of the production in i860 and equal to more
IJ2 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
than 82 per cent of the total value of these goods produced in the United
States. The standing of these States by value of products was as follows:
New York $35,886,048
Pennsylvania 21,896,063
Massachusetts 6,620,257
Connecticut 4,043,977
Rhode Island 2,713,850
New Hampshire 2,592,829
Vermont i ,834,685
New Jersey i ,784,148
Maryland 5I4.093
Delaware 429.055
Maine 29,075
The enactment of the tariff of 1910 caused a large importation of
automatic machinery for knitting full-fashioned hosiery, that and an in-
creased demand for seamless hose, an American specialty, caused a decrease
in the American imports of cotton hosiery, which during the last quarter
of 1910 were lower than at any other time during the present century.
Hand knitting is first spoken of in Germany in the middle of the
sixteenth century. The art was practised in Berlin in 1590. It is not
known when the first stocking loom was taken to Germany. It seems to
have been chiefly distributed about that empire by French refugees after
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes; at any rate, they carried to Hesse
the first stocking- frames known there; and at Pausa in Saxony, the parts
of the machines are called by French names, these frames being brought
there from Handee, near Frankfort, shortly after the Revocation. The
first stocking-frame was taken there by a man named Becker, who con-
structed others of wood; Felkin states that looms were made of that
material at Olbernheim in the Erzeburge, a district surrounding Chemnitz.
The growth of the hosiery industry in Saxony was very rapid ; from
1840 to 1850, the number of looms increased from 20,000 to 30,000; the
two centres of the Saxony hosiery manufactured on wooden looms. The
industry in Chemnitz was founded in 1728 by three persons, Roeder, Braun
and Saur, who transplanted the manufacture of cotton hose, caps and
gloves to that place in 1765. In 1802, the guild produced more than
50,000 dozens of hosiery and in 1820 it numbered 1,538 master workmen,
630 journeymen and 346 apprentices.
The firm now trading under the names of Gottlieb Hecker and Soehne,
has been established in Chemnitz for nearly 150 years.
Up to a very recent time, one-third of the output of hosiery at
Chemnitz came to the United States. But the increased demand in this
country for seamless hose, an American specialty, caused a diminution in
OF THE UNITED STATES 153'
the exports, which fell from $1,666,193, '" the quarter ending March 31,
1910, to $841,907, in the quarter ended Dec. 31, 1910.
In Saxony, manufacturing methods were more conservative than in
England ; there was more opposition to new ideas and to new machinery ;
for instance, wide hand frames with carriers, making several cleared — i. <?.,
fashioned — hose at once were in full employment in England in 1S50-1, while
in Saxony they did not come into use until about ten years later. Most of
the machines brought into use were English. An essential impediment to
the quick and general adoption of power machines was the non-develop-
ment of the machine-building industry.
The production of hosiery in France has attained a high degree of
excellence. Troyes may be called the Nottingham of France and is the
principal seat of the cotton hosiery fabrication. Nismes and the Depart-
ment du Gard generally are the centre of the silk industry. In Paris and
its environs, most of the fancy goods are made. M. Delarothiere of
Troyes is one to whom the industry is greatly indebted for many valuable
inventions. In 1828, he produced a machine which supplied web equal to
that from the English warp frame. His next invention was a machine
for making gloves which replaced those which had been smuggled there
from England. In 1834, he constructed a device for narrowing stocking
feet without seams. Twelve patents were granted him in France in fifteen
years and his system of narrowing frames spread over the entire industry
in that country. The Poron Freres of Troyes introduced English rotary
ribbed frames. M. Tailbuis patented, in 1862, "a rectilinear knitting-frame;"
he constructed hosiery machinery after English and French patterns at St.
Just, and for his valuable efforts in the fostering and improvement of the
knitting industry was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor.
IS4 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
MERCERIZATION OF COTTON
BY JOHN H. LORIMER
RIercerization of cotton as now understood and commercially practised
differs so much from the mercerization of cotton as described and com-
mercially practised by John Mercer, who in 1850 obtained a patent for Iiis
process of treating cotton by immersion in a cold concentrated solution of
caustic soda, or caustic potash, that no one familiar with the results obtained
then or for over forty years after he made his disclosures would recognize
these later results as possible of attainment by the process or processes
publicly known and practised by Mercer and other investigators between
the years 1844 and 1895.
The fact that Mercer first discovered, patented, and so disclosed a few
of the many wonderful effects now produced by the immersion of cotton
in a concentrated solution of caustic potash, or caustic soda, no doubt justifies
in the popular mind the application of his name to all subsequent discoveries
of new effects producible by any modification of his process as described
and practised by him and other investigators for over forty years ; at the
same time it seems to be only fair that specifically new effects obtained by
later investigators should be duly acknowledged in any record purporting to
give briefly or otherwise a history of the development of the mercerization
of cotton.
John Mercer wnas one of the most notable pioneers of the development
of the cotton manufacturing industry of Great Britain, and his process
for treating cotton cloth in a concentrated solution of caustic soda or
caustic potash was probably his most notable discovery.
His invention as described in his patent application and as further
elaborated in the trade and scientific literature of his day was for the double
purpose of shrinking openly woven cloths to give them increased strength
and closely woven effects and increased affinity for dyes and colors.
Careful investigation of the development of this process of Mercer
fails to discover any commercial advance between the results obtained by
Mercer at the time of his original disclosures and the disclosures of possible
new effects by Thomas and Prevost, in 1895-8, when the new silk lustre
effects now so well known were added to those effects previously discovered
and disclosed by Mercer.
Horace Arthur Lowe, another distinguished investigator, patented in
1890 what purported to be an improvement of the Mercer process. This
OF THE UNITED STATES
155
patent of Lowe's seems to have been a natural product of the Mercer
process; but as he confined himself to an effort to regulate by mechanical
devices the results obtained by Mercer he fell short of the results obtained
by subsequent investigators.
Lowe's efforts seem to have begun and ended in the effort to regulate
results of Mercer, such regulation to be obtained by mechanical devices and
therefore reducible to controllable and commercial limits.
Thomas and Prevost, on the other hand, cut loose from all limitations
of Mercer and Lowe and soon discovered an entirely new product pre-
viously unknown to either Mercer or Lowe or other investigators, and thus
added to the industries of the world a new article of commerce, previously
unknown either laboratorically or commercially, and they alone seem to be
entitled to the credit of such discovery of the new effects and the new
article of commerce known as Mercerized Cotton.
Naturally a discovery of such great commercial value led to disputes as
to the validity of patents obtained by Thomas and Prevost, and as such
patents as they did obtain very clearly disclosed the fact that the results
obtained by Mercer and Lowe formed the basis for their conception of the
greater discoveries they had made and which are now known to have been
within the grasp of any intelligent investigator with courage enough to
begin his investigation of the Mercer process just where Mercer and Lowe
left off.
Litigation followed, and because of this litigation a great industrial
discovery became public property by "due process of law," which in many
instances has become the modern equivalent of the bludgeon of less law-
abiding ages.
The story of this celebrated case is replete with the history of the
Mercer, Lowe and Thomas and Prevost processes and contains the very
best history of the mercerization of cotton obtainable at the present time.
Of course it is too voluminous to be included in this brief story of
Mercerized Cotton, but all who seek or require more light on this lustrous
subject are referred to the story as contained in the records of the Circuit
Court of the United States, District of Massachusetts, Case No. 1458,
1906, where they will find most interestingly told all the historical facts
pertaining to the Mercerization of Cotton.
156 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
THE SILKY LUSTRE OF MERCERIZATION
I
BY WILLIAM W. CROSBY
The famous patent suits in regard to the mercerization of cotton
developed many interesting questions, among which none was more so
than, "What is silky lustre?" Whatever Mercer knew more or less than
that by means of a caustic soda bath he altered the count of a fabric and its
dyeing qualities, it is certain that Horace Arthur Lowe recognized that the
question of tension during the caustic treatment was of great importance.
Thomas and Prevost in their early patents sought to secure the much desired
silky lustre by heavy tension, and their "extra powerful machines'' were to
stretch the yarn "until the silky lustre appeared." In order to lose no
possible advantage they named many reagents to use on the yarn, not
only caustic soda and caustic potash, but sulphuric acid, aluminum chloride,
zinc chloride, etc. But silky lustre owes its principal properties to a very
simple condition. Chevreul long ago described clearly the difference be-
tween silky lustre and specular, the latter being that of polished metal, while
the former is due to alternated lines of light and shadow, as for instance
where light is reflected by a number of polished metal cylinders lying side
by side which would throw light from certain elements of the cylinders
while the spaces between would be dark.
Textile yarns may be brought into this condition so that when properly
spun and twisted there is a close approach to lustre as compared with yarn
made of the same fibre but improperly spun and twisted.
When cotton fibres are treated with caustic soda, there is probably but
a small chemical change, the cellulose first becoming sodic cellulose, and
then hydro-cellulose, but there is a tremendous physical upheaval, for if
left free in the bath, the fibres writhe and twist as if alive. If washed and
dried, there is a snarly knotted mass which, from the time water is applied,
requires a relatively strong force to straighten out; but if at the outset
force be used to keep the fibres straight and parallel, it has been shown
that this force is only a small fraction of that which will be necessary to
straighten them out once they have become snarled. The office, then, of the
tension is not so much to produce silky lustre as to prevent the chemicals
from destroying that parallelism which makes for the necessary lustre.
It is quite true that a caustic soda bath removes the natural dull surface
of the cotton fibre and plumps it out from the collapsed state which is the
natural one into a smooth cylindrical state. It has been demonstrated ex-
OF THE UNITED STATES
157
perimentally that if yarn is so spun that the fibres assume heterogeneous
positions, as for instance by spinning them on the woolen system, merceriz-
ing will not make them lustrous. Again in a two-ply yarn, where the doub-
ling and twisting is to the opposite hand from the original spinning, this
being the usual way of making the two-ply yarn, upon mercerizing lustre
results, while if the doubling and twisting be put to the same hand
as the original spinning, even though the mercerizing be carefully done,
little if any lustre results. Thus it is to be noted that silky lustre so far as
mercerizing is concerned depends concurrently upon a chemical treatment
and the spinning of the yarn.
158 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
BLEACHING, DYEING AND PRINTING
BY L. DA COSTA WARD
The development of the bleaching, dyeing and tissue-printing industries,
in this country, has been so dependent upon what has been done in other
countries, particularly in Europe and Great Britain, that in order to give
the subject proper treatment we must go back to the earliest times. Pre-
cisely when and where the practice of dyeing and bleaching originated will
never be known ; but from ancient writings we learn that they both flourished
many centuries before the Christian era in India, Persia, Egypt, Syria
and other eastern countries. That the Egyptians were familiar with the
use of indigo is showin by its presence on mummy wrappings preserved
in the British and other museums.
Moses speaks of blue, scarlet and purple fabrics, and Job of the
colored stuffs made in India and Tyre, and also of washing (the forerunner
of bleaching) his clothes in a pit with the herb boreth, which is probably
falworth, common in Judea, Arabia and Egypt. Homer also speaks of
Nausica and her companions whitening their clothes by stamping them
with their feet in a pit.
The dye most particularly referred to by the ancients is Tyrian
purple, supposed to have. been discovered by the dyers of Tyre. There
are many and varied hypotheses regarding the nature of the material em-
ployed, but the most generally accepted is that it was the liquor or juice
of a certain shell-fish. Many, however, think that this was simply a blind
to hide the knowledge of cochineal and a suitable mordant.
The color varied through many tones of purple, and in the time of
Augustus Csesar a pound of wool dyed with this color brought about
1,000 denarii or $i6o. Moreover, the wearing of "the purple" by any
but those of exceedingly high rank was punishable by imprisonment and
sometimes death.
The art of dyeing and bleaching became lost to Europe on the fall
of the Roman empire, and not until the time of Charlemagne did it again
obtain a foothold in Western Europe.
The earliest to become prominent in this line were the Frieslanders,
about the beginning of the thirteenth century, and the Hardenwyk dye
works are still prominent in Europe. With the outbreak of the Crusades
and the resulting contact of Western Europe with the Oriental countries,
the taste for colored garments, obtained in the East, was brought to bear
OF THE UNITED STATES 159
upon the Western manufacturers, who had great difficulty in understanding
the Oriental taste. The exact date of the introduction of textile printing
into European countries is not known, but it was probably at about this
period and undoubtedly had its origin in India. It was not practiced,
however, until the seventeenth century, i. e., commercially. At this time,
Venice and other republics of the Italian peninsula were leaders in the
commerce of the world. Manufactures and dyeing flourished in Venice,
Florence and Genoa. Florence possessed about 200 dye houses in the
fourteenth century, and from the fact that one of its streets was called
"Strada de Roccellarii," Roccella Archil was probably one of the chief
dyewoods employed. In 1429 appeared the first collection of dyeing
processes ever published. These were printed in Venice under the title
"Mariegola dell' Arte dei Tintori'' (Manual of the Art of Dyeing), and
a second edition appeared in 1510. Giovanni Ventura Rossetti published a
similar work called "Plictho dell' Arte dei Tintori" in 1548. The first
paper in English on this subject was by Sir William Petty (1623-87) as "An
Appendix to the History of the Common Practice of Dyeing," and was
printed in the "History of the Royal Society," by Dr. Spratt (1636-1713).
When indigo made its first appearance in Europe is not exactly known,
but during the sixteenth century it was used considerably by the Italians
and Dutch. It is interesting that the introduction of indigo was stren-
uously opposed by the cultivators of woad, and at the time of Elizabeth
was prohibited in England on the ground that it was a "wicked and per-
nicious drug,", and the act prohibiting its use has never been repealed.
Similar steps were taken against the introduction of logwood on the
ground of its being poisonous and not at all fast.
By the discovery of America in 1492 and the subsequent numerous
explorations, many new dyestuffs were placed at the disposal of the
European dyer: notably, logwood, cochineal, annatto and Brazil wood.
The art of bleaching up to this time had not many milestones mark-
ing its way to improvement. The ancients were content, from the fact
that they knew nothing better, to whiten their garments by steeping in a
"lix ivium" made by extracting wood ashes with water, and the early
Scotch and Irish similarly used the ashes of seaweed, which they called
"Kelp."
Then came the steeping of linen in lyes, with a subsequent souring
in sour milk and exposure on the grass for a greater or less period. The
time required was from four to six months and was applied to linen only,
cotton being deemed sufficiently white.
In 1728, James Adais proposed to the Scotch Board of Manufacturers
the establishment of a bleaching field in Galloway. This was accepted,
and at the same time $10,000 were offered in premiums for the establish-
ment of similar enterprises in other parts of the country.
The Irish method of using kelp was introduced into Scotland in 1732
i6o TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
by Richard Holden, and resulted in a bleaching field being established at
Dundee.
During the middle of the eighteenth century bleaching by the foregoing
process was almost a monopoly in the hands of the Dutch, with Harlem
as the centre of activity. The bleaching of wool by the fumes resulting
from burning sulphur was certainly practiced as early as the latter part
of the seventeenth century, but just when this action was first observed
the writer has not been able to ascertain.
Such was the condition of the bleaching industry in Europe at that
time, and it is very doubtful whether this form of bleaching was conducted
at all in America on a commercial scale. The first improvement in this
long and necessarily expensive process was that of Dr. Home, of Edin-
burgh. This consisted in the substitution of a weak solution of sulphuric
acid (oil of vitriol) for the sour milk. This reduced the time somewhat,
but it still took several months, for as yet no substitute for the "grassing"
had been found.
This was the only marked advance in bleaching until Scheele's dis-
covery of chlorine in 1774, of which and its subsequent results we will
speak later.
The art of printing textiles was not practiced on a commercial basis
in European countries until about the middle of the seventeenth century,
and it then consisted solely of block printing. The method consisted in
dipping a carved block into a suitably thickened dyestuff solution, and
then making an impression of the block upon the fabric to be printed.
This necessarily required an enormous amount of time, especially when
five or six colors were required. This gave rise to the invention of the
perrotine in the middle of the eighteenth century. The perrotine was a
block-printing machine, a description of which cannot be made intelligible
by writing. Let it suffice to say that it did not meet with general acceptance.
The perrotine gave way to the cylinder printing machine, invented by
a Scotchman named Bell, in 1783, and first used successfully in the plant
of Messrs. Livesey, Hargreaves, Hull & Co., at Morney, near Preston,
England. Cylinder printing is now generally practiced in Europe and
America, block printing being still used in India, China, Japan, and in
Europe and America only for novelties. (See Plate 10.)
Let us now return to 1774. In this year Scheele, a Swedish chemist,
discovered the gas which is named chlorine. He noticed that the cork
in the vessel containing the gas turned a very pale yellow, and with that
observation dismissed the subject.
In 1785, Berthollet, the distinguished French chemist, published an
article on chlorine and pointed to the possibilities of the gas for the
bleaching of textiles. During the next two years (1786-1787) James
Watt practiced the use of chlorine at the bleaching field of his father-in-law,
a man named MacGregor, near Glasgow, and not long after this the
OF THE UNITED STATES i6i
method was used at Aberdeen by Gorden, Barrow & Co., and at Man-
chester, England, by Thomas Henry.
The chlorine was employed in the form of a solution of the gas in
water, and in many cases had disastrous effects upon the w.ork people.
■Consequently, it fell into disuse until it wSs found that the gas could
be absorbed in alkalies, such as soda and potash lyes, giving efficient
bleaching action without injurious effects on the operatives.
The use of chlorine compounds revolutionized the cotton and linen
bleaching industry, reducing the time required from four months to two days.
In 1798, Charles Tennant, of Glasgow, took out a patent for the use
of chlorine absorbed in lime water; but the patent was nullified on the
grounds that it included the use of lime for "bucking," as the preliminary
treatment with alkaline liquors was termed. Although lime had been
used previous to this time, it was in an entirely different manner.
In 1799 (April 13), Tennant was granted a patent for the preparation
of solid "chloride of lime" or "bleaching powder," the process consisting
in saturating slaked lime with chlorine gas.
Until today, this is still the most important compound employed in
the bleaching of vegetable fibres.
Let us now turn to America. In the earlier days of colonization,
from the nature of things, much time could not be spent in the development
of manufactures. However, as the questions of safety and government
liecame less urgent, the minds of the people turned to the production of
clothing, household articles, etc., which hitherto had to be obtained in the
greater part from the mother country.
The colonial policy of England did not coincide, however, with the
desire of the colonies to enter the manufacturing field. The English view
of the situation is expressed as follows: "The original intent of planting
those colonies, viz., to be a benefit to their mother country, to which they
owe their being and protection." Lord Sheffield said that "the only use"
of the colonies was a monopoly of their trade ; and Lord Chatham de-
clared that "the British colonists of North America had no right to
manufacture even a nail or a horseshoe."
The English policy was to keep the colonies in a state of dependence
upon the mother country for their clothing, tools, furniture and all other
manufactured articles. A law passed in Virginia, in 1684, to encourage
textile manufactures, was promptly annulled in England, and in 1731 the
carriage of woolens and hats from one colony to another was prohibited
by law. The colonies mtist buy everything from England and sell only
to England. In consequence of this, they were compelled to buy more
than they could sell, and by 1771 they were practically in a. state of financial
ruin. The effect of the English policy was that many of the colonists
took to wearing leather garments for the reason that they couldn't afford
to buv woolens.
i62 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
The women wore leather underskirts, and, with the exception of the
sheets, bedding consisted almost solely of leather and furs. The women
gradually learned to spin and weave, and, as public manufacture was pro-
hibited, these operations were usually carried out in private households.
In 1765, a society was formed in New York to encourage the manu-
facture of woolens, and homespun cloths became the fashion. It is at this
time that the first mention of dyeing in America occurs, and although no
names or dates are given, it is stated that each village had its own dyer
and fuller. The colors were poor and nearly all ran. This would serve
to indicate that those employed in this branch were novices, as there were
plenty of fast colors known to the initiated. This is one of the reasons
why the Continental Army presented such a bedraggled appearance during
the Revolutionary War.
In 1774, a linen printing establishment was started in Philadelphia by
John Walters and Thomas Bedwell, with the announcement that "a single
gown may be printed, waistcoats, chair-bottoms, etc., in durable colors."
As a result of the -War of Independence, factories began to gradually
spring up all over the country, but they were necessarily small and far
apart, on account of the poverty of the nation. In 1779, John Hewson
and a man named Long started a linen and calico-printing plant in Phila-
delphia, and in 1789, with a loan of 200 pounds from the state, were
able "to enlarge and carry on the business of calico printing and bleaching
within the state" (Pennsylvania). "General Washington was accustomed
to point with pride to the domestic fabrics on the person of Mrs. Wash-
ington, from the establishment of Mr. Hewson."
The first mention of cotton manufacture refers to a mill established
at Beverly, Mass., in 1787, but it is highly probable that bleaching and
dyeing were not carried on in connection with it.
In 1789, the Manufacturing Committee of Pennsylvania held its
first sale of printed cottons, etc., and John Hewson was elected printer
to the society, and in this year the first plea was made for a protective
tariflf.
About the middle of the eighteenth century a Turkey-red dye works
was established at Rouen, France, by a company of Greeks, and in 1765
the French government caused the method of operation to be published.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century a Turkey-red dyehouse was
established at Manchester, England, by a M. Borelle. In 1783, a Frenchman
named Papillon established a similar plant at Glasgow, and Mr. Wilson,
of Ainsworth, established one at Manchester, having obtained the process
from the Greeks of Smyrna. Papillon was employed by Messrs. David
Dale and George Mcintosh^ and their successors have carried on the business
for more than three-fourths of a century. In 1803, the process was made
public, and gradually passed into other countries. The exact date of its
introduction to America is doubtful, but was probably between 1815 and
PLATE X— Printing
1. I'rimitive Hand Printing"
Filling in.
3. Printing, Twelve Colors,
JAMES H LAMB CO.
OF THE UNITED STATES 163
1820. This method seemed only applicable to cotton yarn, but in 1810
cloth itself was first successfully dyed with this color at the works of
Messrs. Koechlin, in Mulhausen, Germany.
In 1775, Edwin Bancroft made public the dyeing value of quercitron,
and obtained from the Parliament of England the exclusive right to its
importation for six years. The use of madder, which, before the introduc-
tion of alizarin, in 1868, Was a most valuable dyestuff, appears to be very
ancient, having been employed by the ancient Egyptians, Hindoos and
Persians. Its first European cultivation was probably in Spain, having
been introduced by the Saracens. It was grown in Marseilles in 1287,
but not extensively until about 1660-70. ISIadder cultivation in England
was never very successful, although it was attempted in 1624 and later in
1670, premiums having been ofliered by the London Society of Arts to en-
courage its growth.
In 1791, the General Assembly of Connecticut granted permission to
a man named Fitch to build a dam and mill at Stamford. Shortly after
this the property changed hands, and in 1796 the new owlners started
cutting and grinding logwood. A few years later they began to make
log^vood extract, and about 1800 built a new mill nearby the old one. In
1844, the business was incorporated under the laws of Connecticut as the
Stamford Manufacturing Company, which name it still retains. This is
the earliest record the writer has been able to obtain in reference to dye-
stuff manufacture in this country.
In the year 1803 a calico printing plant was established in German-
town, Pa., by a man named Stewart, and another in the same year by
Thorbourne, at Darby. Pa.
In order to acquire some idea of the extent of cotton spinning in
the United States at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and which
naturally had a promising influence on the dyeing, bleaching and printing
industries, we find: In 1804 there were four cotton mills in successful
operation; in 1807 there were fifteen; in 181 1 there were eighty-seven.
In 1815 Rhode Island was the centre of the industry, and between 1806
and 1814 Massachusetts had granted charters to fifty cotton mills. In
1813 New York chartered fifteen and there were five in Paterson, N. J., and
eleven in Baltimore, Md. ; yet up to this time the cloth was made at home
on hand looms.
The production of more material increased the demand for bleached
and colored fabrics and resulted in the increase of the number of bleach-
eries, dyehouses and print shops.
George S. White, in his "Memoirs of Samuel Slater," states that'
"bleaching, calenderings, etc., were introduced at great expense, in Provi-
dence, by Dr. Bowen, w^here the water is well adapted, and there is now
(1836) a bleaching and beetling establishment called by his name. The
bleaching business is now very extensive in the United States and they are
i64 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
becoming more perfect in process, as more attention is paid to every de-
partment in preparation for calico printing. Rhode Island appears to be
in advance in the bleaching business, both for quality and quantity of its
work."
In 1809, Messrs. Thorp, Siddall & Co. established a print and bleach
works between Germantown and Branchtown, Pa., on the cylinder-printing
system which had been invented by Bell. In this year Siddall brought
machinery and engraved rollers from England, and in October of the fol-
lowing year (1810) the first lot of calico printed by the new system was
put upon the market at Philadelphia
The year previous to the establishment of the Thorp, Siddall Co.,
i. c, 1808, the process of engraving the copper print rollers by means of
a die was invented in England by Jacob Perkins and introduced the same
year by Joseph Lockett, who was engraver to the calico printers of Man-
chester, England.
The new printing process was considered wonderful. One man and
two boys were able to print 10,000 yards of cloth and 50,000 handkerchiefs
in a single day.
Two or three years after this, about 1812-13, cotton and linen goods
were first dyed in the piece for various uses. In 1809, James Madison
wore a black broadcloth suit made and dyed in this country. In June,
1810, Benjamin, Charles, Elisha and Olney Dyer, together with Charles
Warburton, "an experienced Workman from England," formed a joint stock
partnership, under the firm name of the Providence Dyehouse Company, at
Providence, R. I. They did a business in dyeing yarns, accepting their pay
entirely in yarn, which yarn they afterward put out to weave, giving
"great encouragement for weaving fine numbers." (See sketch of Provi-
dence Dyeing and Bleaching Company.)
In the year 181 1, Hercules Whitney and Henry Hoppin bought from
the widow of William Smith, an Englishman, the patent rights to a friction
calender, dated 1805, and did business under the firm name of Whitney &
Hoppin. In 1815, together with James B. Mason, Benjamin and Charles
Dyer, Benjamin and Thomas C. Hoppin, they formed the Patent Calendering
and Bleaching Company, buying in also a patent on a press. In the year
1814 Whitney & Hoppin had, with Edward Mason, Jr., and Daniel Bates,
purchased from Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia, a Columbia steam engine
for running their finishing works, and in December, 1815, the two com-
panies were amalgamated as the Providence Dyeing, Bleaching and Calen-
dering Company, with the addition of Smith Bosworth as a partner, he
becoming the first agent of the company. The company is still in existence
(191 1 ), and has a complete record of its stockholders from 1815 and the
original partnership agreements of all three companies and also the permit
from Oliver Evans to run his engine, which is a record of great interest
and merit.
OF THE UNITED STATES 165
In the year 1816 Messrs. Reynolds and Innis made dyestuffs (un-
doubtedly grinding of woods and preparation of extracts is meant) at
Poughkeepsie, New York, being the second firm on record in this particular
line.
During the later years of the eighteenth and the beginning of the
nineteenth century, Samuel Wetherill carried on the art of dyeing of
woolen goods, also fulling and and chemical manufacture in South Alley,
Philadelphia, and laid the way for the present white lead manufactory
controlled by his descendants. After the War of 1812, fresh impulse
was given to manufactures of all kinds, and in 1820 the Boston Manufac-
turing Company established a bleaching and dye works at Waltham, Mass.,
which continued under that name until 1901, when the name was changed
to the Waltham Bleachery and Dye Works.
In 1823, James Bolton, Samuel Pilling and Peter H. Schenk, of Bron.x-
dale, New York, established a dyeing, bleaching, printing and finishing plant
at this place, which is still in existence (1911), being known as the Bronx
Company, New York City, having from the time of its organization been
a family concern.
In 1826, the Hudson Calico Printing Works of Marshall, Carville and
Taylor were established at Stockport, N. Y., with one machine, small dye-
house and bleach-house, and other necessaries for finishing. They printed
300 yards per day, and carried on both block and cylinder printing. In
1836, they had three printing machines made in England, a dyewood
grinding mill and a madder dyehouse 286x50 feet, the largest of its kind
ever built, and at this time employed 200 men.
In 1827, the Cocheco Manufacturing Company was incorporated by
John Wheeler, Moses Paul, Matthew Bridge, George Bond, Ed Bourne,
Patrick T. Jackson, Edward H. Robbins, Jr., and Samuel Torrey as a
print works. In 1909, the plant, then consisting of cotton mills, print
works and a velvet mill, was absorbed by the Pacific Mills, of Lawrence,
Mass.
Bleaching by manual labor was carried on until 1828, when Mr.
Bentley, of Pendleton, England, attempted to introduce machinery to take
its place. Mr. John Graham, of England, also did much to bring the
bleaching process to its present state.
In 1829, Thomas Hunter began the practice of calico printing in
Philadelphia, and in 1832 he started the operation of a copper roller ma-
chine, the roller having been engraved by Matthias Baldwin, of locomotive
fame. Baldwin became associated with David H. Mason in 1825, when they
formed a partnership for the purpose of engraving rollers for calico
printers, and were the first to carry on this art in America. They soon
increased their business, and started the manufacture of printing ma-
chines and drying calenders for wool, cotton and silk materials. On
i66 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Thomas Hunter's death in 1848, he was succeeded by his sons, John
and James.
Watson, in his "Annals of Philadelphia," states that in this city in
1827, $228,000 worth of indigo was used and that there were about 200
dyers who received on the average of S5.00 per week in wages.
In 1830, the plant known as the Allen Printing Company was founded
by Governor Philip Allen. From 1901 to 1907 the plant was leased to a
private company and later went into the hands of Jesse ATetcalf Company,
of Providence, R. I., and so passed out of existence as a bleachery.
In 1831, Joseph Bancroft started the manufacture of cotton goods at
Wilmington, Del., and some years later, the exact date not being known,
the dyeing and finishing end of the business was established and is still
flourishing. In this year (1831), according to the Memoirs of Samuel
Slater, the printing of calico in this country was greatly improved.
On the 13th of January, 1833, the State of Massachusetts granted
a charter "that Jonathan Derby, John Clark and Augustus H. Fiske, their
associates, successors and assigns be and they hereby are made a corporation
by the name of the 'Lowell Bleachery,' for the purpose of bleaching, color-
ing, printing and finishing cotton and woolen goods, etc." The original
capital was $25,000, which was gradually increased to $400,000 and after-
ward reduced to $200,000; in 191 1 is still doing business under the original
charter.
Browning & Bros., in 1834, started the manufacture of dyewood ex-
tracts in Philadelphia, being probably the first in this locality to follow this
work, and in the same year the American Printing Company was established
by Holder, Borden and others at Fall River, Mass., with four machines and
a weekly output of 2,000 pieces. The plant was gradually increased, and
in 1880 M. C. D. Borden bought the property of the Fall River Iron Works
and used the liberal charter for the consolidation of several large cotton
mills. Mr. M. C. D. Borden, by purchase, became the sole owner of the
American Printing Co. in 1886, which, taken together with the above-men-
tioned mills, is said to be the largest manufacturing plant under one owner-
ship and management in the world, and at the present day the printworks
print about 600 miles of cloth per day and put upon the market some 3,000
new patterns each year.
In the year 1834 John Large established the Summerdale Print Works,
and in 1836 the country boasted the following bleacheries: Ten or twelve in
Pennsylvania; Phillip Allen's, at Providence, R. I.; Sprague's, at Crans-
ton, R. I. ; Crawford /Mien's, at Pawtucket, R. I. ; one at Lowell, Mass.
(Lowell Bleachery) ; one at Taunton, Mass.; one at Dover, N. H. ; two at
East Madden (probably R. L) ; two or three in New Jersey.
The bleaching was generally carried on in connection with calico print-
ing, and the year ending April, 1836, shows a record of 120,000,000 yards
printed.
OF THE UNITED STATES 167
The so-called "American Process" of calico bleaching was introduced
in 1837, though just why it is given this name is not very clear. It con-
sisted of the following operations, which are still followed, with minor
changes, to this day :
(a) Singeing, (b) Gray washing, (c) Boiling with lime, under pres-
sure, (d) Treatment with weak acid (gray sour), (e) Boiling with resin
soap, under pressure, (f) Boiling with soda ash, under pressure, (g)
Treatment with bleaching powder solution (chemick). (h) Treatment with
weak acid (white sour), (i) Rinsing in clean water, (j) Drying.
It was in this year (1B37) that Smith Gray founded what is at pres-
ent known as the S. Gray Company, at Walpole, Mass. — for the purpose of
bleaching and dyeing cotton yarns and thread — with an original production
of 1,000 pounds per day. This has increased to 10,000 pounds per day.
The first manufacture of bleaching powder in this country was con-
ducted at Bridesburg, Pa., by Charles Lennig, in 1847. The production of
this substance has increased enormously, and in 1898 the Dow Chemical
Company at Midland. Mich., and the Mathieson Alkali Works at Niagara
Falls, N. Y., began its manufacture from electrolitic chlorine. It is, how-
ever, still imported in large quantities, the amount in 1900 being 136,403,151
po'.mds, valued at .$1,464,019.
In the year 1847, also, Elijah Upton and T. W. Walker established the
Danvers Bleachery and Dye Works at Peabody, Mass., then known as South
Danvers. This plant was in operation under the old name as late as 1908-
1909. It has, however, recently been absorbed by the Naumkeag Co., of
Salem. Mass.
In the following year, that is, 1848, William Simpson, Sr., established
a bleaching and calico printing plant at Falls of Schuylkill, Pa., and m 1876
the plant was transferred to its present location at Eddystone, Pa., and be-
came known as The Eddystone Manufacturing Company, and at present
is one of the largest plants of its kind in this country. In 1849 we find
another pioneer in the dyestuff field in Alexander Cochrane, who started
to make indigo extract at Lowell, Mass., and in 1850 W. P. Uhlinger, of
Philadelphia, began the manufacture of hydroextractors. Also, in 1850,
the Eagle Mills were established in Columbus, Ga., and from the out-
set did their own dyeing and bleaching. During the Civil War these mills
were operated by the Confederate government for the manufacture of uni-
forms, and in 1865 were burned by General Wilson, of the Federal Army,
after the Battle of Columbus, on the ground that they were Confederate
property. During the period of reconstruction, the mills were re-built
(1866-67), and from the nature of their previous destruction and reorgan-
ization were named the Eagle and Phenix Mills. It may be of interest to
state that these were the first cotton mills in the wprld to be completely
lighted by electricity. In 1852 The Tolhurst Machine Works were estab-
lished at Troy, N. Y., and built their first old-style under-driven hydro-
i68 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
extractor in October of 1878. This machine was termed self-balancing. In
1885 William H. Tolhnrst was granted a patent right on the "Tolhurst Self-
Balancing Extractor."
During the early 50's delaines were being largely imported, and con-
stituted one of the chief forms of low-grade dress goods. In 1854 the Pacific
Mills, of Lawrence, Mass., first put their products on the market, and at
that time, under a low tariff, English printed calicos and delaines came into
keen competition with the home product, causing a sharp conflict for the
control of the market, which resulted in a victory for the American manu-
facturer.
From the earliest time, up to the year 1856, dyers and printers were
limited to the colors derived from minerals, woods and certain insects. In
1856 Sir William H. Perkin discovered that a violet coloring matter could
be made artificially from aniline, which is one of the products derived from
coal tar. This he called Mauveine or Perkin's Violet. This discovery was
destined to revolutionize the whole dyeing industry, and other discoveries
followed each other in amazing rapidity, of which we will give a brief ac-
count later.
In 1858 or i860 Chas. G. Sargent began the building of his drying ma-
chines for raw stock. These were platform or table dryers, and Mr. Sargent
had a patent for blowing air, hot or cold, up and down through the stock on
the .screen. This patent made a very broad claim and covered practically
the whole principle.
Later the Sargents conceived the idea of building a drier in which the
stock could travel from one end of the machine to the other, and in 1883
Mr. F. G. Sargent conceived the idea of a travelling wire cloth belt for con-
veying the material through the chamber while being acted upon by a circu-
lating current of heated air.
This was the beginning of the Sargent Automatic Dryer, which, in
1892, was changed from a one-apron to a five-apron dryer. Five aprons
being found unnecessary in 1895, the three-apron dryer was adopted.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, the cotton industry in the United
States was sadly affected, owing to the cutting off of the supply of raw
material ; but the woolen industry received great impetus, owing to large
government orders. So great were these that many cotton mills undertook
the manufacture of woolen materials.
Harvey and Oliver Arnold, however, reversed the old adage "in time of
war prepare for peace." In 1862 they built a print works at North Adams,
Mass., trading as Harvey .Arnold & Co. In 1S76 a new company, including
the two Arnolds, was incorporated as the Arnold Print Works and their
products are known throughout the country.
Like the Arnolds. Richard Greenwood and William Bault established
a dye and bleach works at Philadelphia in i86/^, and are now doing business
under the name of the Globe Dve Works Co.
OF THE UNITED STATES 169
In 1867 John H. Foster and the late Thomas Firth established a dye
house in Philadelphia which gradually increased until, at the present day,
it is, in the estimation of many, the largest of its kind in that city. In the
following year (1868) the Newburgh Bleachery was established at New-
burgh, N. Y.. and in 1869 Forsyth and Fisher established the Elm City
Dye Works at Westville, near New Haven, Conn., which concern, after
several changes, became the Pond Lily Co., the Forsyth family having
always been in connection with the plant.
It was in the latter part of the 6o's that the coal tar colors began to
come into this country, and in 1871 Messrs. Wm. Pickhardt and Kuttroff
introduced the products of the Badische Anilin-und Soda Fabrik, of Lud-
wigschafen, Germany, and at about the same time Messrs. Rumpf and Lutz
imported the products of Meister, Lucius and Brunnig, of Hoecst, Germany.
In 1872 Spencer Borden started the Fall River Bleachery, at Fall River,
Mass., which has since quadrupled in size, and in the same year Jacob Weid-
mann established a silk dyeing plant at Paterson, N. J., which is now (in
191 1 ) the largest plant in the world, dyeing skein silk exclusively.
In 1875 ^- Klipstein first imported dyestuffs made by Bindschedler and
Busch, of Basle, .Switzerland, who later combined with other factories and
took the name of the Society of Chemical Industry in Basle.
The followmg year, 1876, Mr. William J. Matheson became the Amer-
ican agent for the products of Leopold Cassella and Co., of Frankfort,
Germany, and introduced their products to American dyers.
Turkey red oil, well known to all d3'ers and printers of cotton goods,
was manufactured in this country as early as 1876 by the Walpole Dye and
Chemical Works, at Walpole, Mass. Mr. Lane, of the firm of Bosson and
Lane, was then superintendent of the works, and recalls the old method
which consisted in using five-gallon crocks, a large number of which were
required to get out much of a production. Each crock was surrounded by
circulating cold water to prevent too great a rise in temperature during
the process. It often ha])pened, however, that, even with the greatest care,
much of the product would be spoiled. Messrs. Bosson and Lane state that
they now produce batches of 300 gallons, and, by exercising great care, have
comparatively little trouble in maintaining uniform quality. Mr. Lane states
that he thinks the Walpole product was the first marketed, though many
old Scotch dyers claimed to have made Turkey red oil in this country for
their own use before it became an article of trade.
On the 7th of February, 1877, Edward E. Poor, Chas. A. Denny, James
L. Morgan, James L. Morgan, Jr., John M. Goetchins, Edward L. Kalb-
fleisch, George P. Slade and T. Morgan Slade organized the Passaic Print
Works at Passaic, N. J. Mr. Poor was the moving spirit from its incep-
tion, and was still associated with it until his death in 1900. The present
treasurer doio), Edward E. Poor, was ]\Ir. Poor's oldest son.
In 1878 The Actien-Gesellschaft fur Anilin Fabrikation, of Berlin,
170 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Germany, introduced their dyestuffs into tlie United States, Messrs. Henry
A. Gould & Co., of New York City, being their agents. Later, the Boston
Dyewood Company took the agency, and later the New York and Boston
Dyewood Company, which is now the American Dyewood Company. Since
March, 1899, however, these products have been handled by the Berlin Ani-
Hnc Works.
One of the iirst, and by far the largest manufacturers of artificial dye-
stuffs in this country, is the Q. V. Schoellkopf, Hartford & Hanna Com-
pany. The works were established in 1879 by the late Jacob F. Schoell-
kopf, his sons, Jacob F., Jr., and C. P. Hugo Schoellkopf, at Buffalo, N. Y.,
as the Buffalo Aniline Works, the object being the manufacture of coal
tar dyes and intermediate products to serve as raw materials for other in-
dustries.
At this time peroxide bleaching was just coming before the public, and
the first to manufacture hydrogen peroxide in this country was the Oak-
dale Chemical Company in 1881. The chief drawback to the new bleach was
its price, and it was but little used, although its value as a bleaching agent
was realized until the introduction of sodium peroxide, of which we will
speak later. In this year W. H. I^orimer Sons Co. established in Phila-
delphia, Pa., a dyeing, bleaching and mercerizing plant. In 1882 Kalle &
Co., A. G., dyestuff manufacturers, of Biebrick, Germany, became repre-
sented in this country by Messrs. Herlein & Kupferberg, and in 1883 their
representatives were Messrs. l.eisel and Holbach, which firm became Leisel
and Georgi in the latter part of the same year. In 1884 Kalle & Co. be-
came established in this country under their own name.
Previous to 1882 the products of the St. Denis Dyestuft" and Chemical
Company, of Paris, France, were handled in this country by A. Porrier.
In that year A. Porrier and G. Dalsace consolidated, forming the St. Denis
Co., with Mr. W. J. Miller as the representative in charge. Previous to the
consolidation, Mr. Porrier was rei)resented in New York by Mr. John D.
Wade; in Philadelphia, by Messrs. Andreykovicz and Dunk, and in Bos-
ton by the Boston Dyewood Co. In 1884 Mr. Walter F. Sykes succeeded
Mr. Miller, and has since held the sole agency in this country for the St.
Denis products.
In this year Ludwig Sjiistrom established a dyeing plant at Lawrence,
Mass., in a small wooden building with 1,800 square feet of floor space, from
which has grovvTi the Lawrence Dye Works Company, with, in the year
191 1, two and one-half acres of floor space. This company claims to be the
only one in the country capable of handling practically all classes of textile
fabrics, yam, slubbing and rawstock, in the bleaching, dyeing, printing and
finishing processes, the capacity being four to five million yards of cloth and
two million pounds of yarn or rawstock per annum. This is surely progress.
In 1885 Messrs. Mather & Piatt, Ltd., of Manchester, England, intro-
duced their "Mather Patent Kier" for the boiling out and bleaching of cot-
OF THE UNITED STATES 171
ton cloth. Three were put in use the first year, and in 1901 there were
sixteen in operation in the United States. By this invention, the time of
changing three and one-third tons of cloth in a particular operation was
reduced from several hours to ten minutes. Until 1897 these kiers were
made to stand fifteen pounds pressure per square inch, but since then they
have been built to work at forty pounds pressure per square inch.
In 1886 The Auger and Simon Dyeing Co. was established at Pater-
son, N. J., as a silk dyeing plant, and in the same year Leonard Weldon,
of Amsterdam, N. Y.. put upon the market a machine of peculiar design
for the dyeing of yarn, and a similar machine was marketed two years
later by Klauder Bros., of Philadelphia. In 1890 a consolidation took place,
and the Klauder-Weldon Dyeing Machine Company was formed. Many
other firms make dyeing machines, but this one is mentioned for the reason
that it was one of the first and also because of its peculiar style and gen-
eral applicability.
Up to the present date there have been approximately 3.092 patents
taken out in the United States for processes and machines for bleaching and
dyeing, printed copies of these patent papers being valued at $154.60. Need-
less to say, we will not go deeper into this subject.
We have referred above to the introduction of peroxide bleaching and
its chief drawback. Hamilton Y. Castner discovered a practical process for
the production of sodium peroxide on a large scale, and patented the same
in April, 1893. From that time, until 1896, this article was imported from
England, where it was being manufactured ; but, in that year, the Niagara
Electro-Chemical Company had finished a factory at Niagara Falls for the
manufacture of sodium peroxide under Castner's patent. Thereafter it could
be sold at a much lower price, and, as a consequence, the price of hydrogen
peroxide was considerably reduced also, so that, from 1896 on, bleaching
with peroxides assumed commercial importance. In June, 1899, five dyeing,
bleaching and finishing plants were incorporated as the United States Fin-
ishing Company ; the various plants and their dates of establishment being
as follows :
Pawtucket Branch 1836
Norwich " ' 1840
Silver Spring '' 1864
Passaic '• 1869
Sterling " 1880
Another product which has been advocated especially for the dyeing
of acid colors is formic acid. The first importation of this acid for com-
mercial use was made on January' 20, 1902, but time alone will tell how
far it will replace sulphuric or acetic acids for this purpose.
To even mention the plants of more recent establishment would neces-
172 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
sitate more space than the writer is permitted to use for this article, and
many firms who are adding to the history of bleaching, dyeing and print-
ing of textiles, and by their brains and energies bettering their respective
branches, and who have been courteous enough to give me information re-
garding their origin, must pass unnoticed for this reason.
The introduction of coal tar colors has done so much for the advance-
ment of the dyeing and printing of textiles that a brief chronological ac-
count of the growth of the industry will not be out of place at this point.
As early as 1771 Woulfe prepared picric acid from indigo and nitric
acid, and in 1S34 Runge discovered aurin. Neither of these were made com-
mercially, however, at this time on account of the cost of the materials.
1856 — Mauveine discovered by Sir. Wm. H. Perkin.
1857 — Mauveine manufactured by Sir W. H. Perkin & Sons at Greens-
ford Green, near London.
1858 — Magenta discovered by Natanson.
1859 — Magenta manufactured by Verguin, in connection with Renard
Bros., at Lyons, France.
i860 — Rosaniline blue discovered by Girard and de Laire, of France.
1861 — Methyl violet discovered by Lauth.
Phosphine discovered by Nicholson.
1862 — Water or Nicholson's blue discovered by Nicholson.
First artificial green dye discovered by Cherpin. Called alde-
hyde green.
1863 — Hoffman's violet discovered by Hoffman.
Aniline black discovered by Lightfoot.
1864 — ]\Jartius yellow discovered.
1865 — Bismarck brown discovered by Martius.
1866 — Methyl violet made commercially by Lauth and Ch. Bardy.
Iodine green discovered by Kiesser and replaced aldehyde green.
Bismarck brown manufactured.
1867 — Methyl violet made by Poirrier and Chappat and replaced Hoff-
man's violet.
First soluble Induline prepared by Coupler.
1868 — IMagdala red discovered by Clavel.
Alizarine prepared by Graebe & I^ieberman.
1869 — Alizarine manufactured by Graebe, Lieberman & Perkin.
Gallein and Ceruleine discovered by Baeyer.
1873 — Methyl green discovered by Wischin and replaced iodine green.
Cachou de laval ; first sulphur dye prepared by Croissant and
Brettoniere.
1874 — Eosines introduced by the Badische Anilin u. Soda Fabrik.
1875 — Alizarine orange introduced by the Badische Company.
Chrysoidine discovered by Caro.
OF THE UNITED STATES i7a
1876 — Chnsoidine manufactured by Williams, Thomas & Dover, of
England.
Orange, No. i and No. 2, discovered by Roussin.
Griess and Witt independently prepared the Tropseolines.
1877 — Orange, No. i and No. 2, manufactured by A. Poirrier at Paris.
1877 — Lancaster yellow discovered by Griess and manufactured by
Joseph Story of England.
Methylene blue introduced by the Badische Company.
1878 — Fast red A discovered by Caro.
Alizarine blue and Malachite green also introduced.
Ponceaux and Bordeaux introduced by Meister, Lucius and
Brunnig, of Germany.
1879 — Napthol yellow S discovered by Caro.
Biebrick scarlet discovered by Nietzki.
1880 — Baeyer completed his synthesis of indigo.
1881 — Resorcin brown discovered by Wallach.
1882 — Alizarin blue S introduced.
1883 — Carbonyl chloride first used in dyestufif manufacture by Caro
and Kern, resulting in discovery of Crystal violet.
1884 — Congo red the first direct dyeing cotton color put upon the
market. Discovered by Paul Bottiger the year previous.
1885 — Naphthol black, the first satisfactory azo black prepared by Hoff-
man & Weinberg, of Germany.
1887 — Primuline, the first developed cotton dye, discovered by Green.
Acid magenta and acid violets discovered by Caro.
Alizarine black introduced by the Badische Company.
1888 — The Oxazines and Rhodindulines introduced by Fischer and
Hepp.
Alizarin green introduced by the Badische Company.
1889 — Gans discovered Diamine black RO, the first direct cotton black,
which was followed by the Columbia blacks.
Diamond black discovered by Baeyer and which was the first
after-chromed black.
Formaldehyde applied to the preparation of dyes by Meister,
Lucius and Brunnig, resulting in New Fuchsine, the acridine
and pyronine dyestuffs.
1890 — Neumann's synthesis of indigo.
1891 — Hoffman & Daimler prepared the first direct dyeing cotton green
— namely. Diamine green.
1894 — Oxamine dyes introduced.
1896 — Vidal black, and the commencement of the sulphur dye industry.
1897 — Indigo made commercially by Heumann's process by the Bad-
ische Company.
1901 — First of the Indanthrene dyes introduced.
174 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Sulphur colors have gained great importance since 1896, when Vidal
published his process, and are now manufactured by nearly all dyestufi
establishments. Since the beginning of the twentieth century many valuable
colors have been put upon the market, among which may be mentioned the
Algole colors, the Helindone colors, the Acid Alizarines, the Anthracene
Chromate and the Ciba colors.
In the last twenty years various types of machines have been devised
for the dyeing of rawstock, yarn, cops, tops, etc., most of them based, how-
ever, upon the same principle — namely, keeping the material stationary and
circulating the liquor, either by pressure or by partial vacuum, and Messrs.
Jackson and Hunt, of England, have patented a kier by means of which
cotton cloth may be passed through the various bleaching operations in the
open width.
Perhaps the greatest benefit derived from the development of the dye-
stuff industry is the calculation of dyes and dyewares on the percentage
basis, all amounts being reckoned as a certain percentage of the weight of
the material to be dyed. The old methods of "Bucket and Scoop" have
passed away, except in a few old-fashioned establishments.
The bleaching, dyeing and printing of textiles in America have de-
veloped remarkably in the last century, but though the number of establish-
ments and the quality of the production have greatly increased all the great
improvements in processes, the discovery of new classes of dyestuffs and
their modes of application are of foreign origin.
To Germany, in particular, are we indebted for most of the dyeing
processes in use for artificial colors. To England we are indebted for
bleaching powder, the first artificial dyestuff, and for the roller printing
machine, and to France for the first sulphur dye.
There are many reasons for this, among which may be mentioned the
high price of alcohol in the United States, large amounts of which are nec-
essary for the manufacture of dyestuffs, and the comparatively recent real-
ization by the textile trade of the value of the chemist.
A comprehensive view of our growth in the bleaching, dyeing and
printing of textiles may be had from the following :
INDEPENDENT DYEING AND FINISHING PLANTS.
Year. No. Establishments. Capital.
1850 104 $4,818,350
i860 124 5,718,671
1870 292 18,374,503
1880 igi 26,223,981
1890 248 38,450,800
1900 298 60,643,104
1905 360 88,708,576
OF THE UNITED STATES 175
Chemicals and Dyewares used in all Textile Industries, 1890-1905.
1890. 1900. 1905-
Independent Estimates $8,407,693 $10,667,621 $10,587,319
Gen. Tex. Estab 11,278,970 14,724,952 16,095,300
Total >;i9,686,663 $25,392,573 $26,682,619
Cotton $4,266,773 $5,718,107 $4,573,375
Wool and Worsted 5,889,612 7,983,684 9,177,681
Hosiery and Knit 564,053 1,023,161 1,677,252
Silk 55^,.532 666,992
Figure:^ taken from TJ. S. Census, 1905.
The United States, however, is still a very young country, and we look
forward to as great a development in the preparation, coloring and print-
ing of textiles as there has been in many of the other important industries
of our country.
i;6 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
HISTORY OF THE DYESTUFF AND DYEING INDUSTRIES
BY HERMAN A. METZ
In the consideration of the history of the development of the art
of dyeing and the growth of the dyestuff trade and industry, we find the
subject naturally divides itself into three parts in which the conditions differ
widely. These eras may be called :
I. The Era of Localized Dyeing.
II. The Era of Exploitation of Natural Coloring Matters.
III. The Era of Synthetic Dyestuffs.
The first era comprises the whole historical account of the subject
previous to the development of foreign commerce, succeeding the dis-
covery of America in 1492. During this period, so far as we know, the
methods of coloring textile fabrics, as well as the composition of the
fabrics themselves, was limited by the local conditions — that is, to such
dyestuffs as were conveniently at hand, for it was impossible to transport
the raw materials any distance, and, therefore, whatever coloring matters
or dyestuffs were at hand were used.
This condition caused some of the most pronounced and brilliant
shades to be called by the geographical names of the localities where pro-
duced, as, owing to the lack of dyestuffs or other necessary material, they
could not be produced in other localities.
Some of the names are still in vogue at the present time. How many
people using the term "Turkey Red"' think that it has any relation to the
country at the eastern end of Europe, and that originally all of it was dyed
there. Tyrian Purple is another, this color being dyed from the coloring
matter from shell fish found on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The
name "Indigo" has a more remote descent from India, but the connection
is the same, all these being brilliant colors produced in some far-off country
and imported at great cost.
II. The Era of Exploitation of Natural Dyestuflfs. — In the century im-
mediately following the discovery of America, foreign commerce by means
of ocean vessels was most successfully developed, and communication
established between countries before either unknown or seldom visited.
This led to the exchange of products, and what effect this had on the
manufacturing industries of Europe can be seen both in the legislation of
the time and the country of origin of many of the raw, materials. When
the importation of the new, foreign dyeing materials began to affect local
OF THE UNITED STATES 177
industries, relief was sought by legislation, and the importation of both
indigo and logwood was prohibited in England.
In furnishing a supply of new materials the then recently discovered
Americas were probably the most important source. During the time
covered by this period, America had furnished logwood, originally
campeche wood, the most important of the natural dyewoods, Brazil wood
and peachwood of the redwoods; quercitron and fustic of the yellow dye-
woods, and of the animal dyestuffs, the cochineal bug. Indigo-bearing
plants had also been discovered, and the Central and South American
indigoes became well known articles of commerce.
At the same time the East Indies and Africa furnished camwood,
sanderswood, sapanwood and turmeric. All these, in addition to the already
known madder, alkanet, young fustic, weld Persian berry and indigo, gave
the dyer a very full assortment of dyeing materials. With the exception
of indigo, all these dyestuffs required the use of metallic salts to develop
the color or bind the color to the fibres. These assistants came to be known
as mordants.
This may therefore be called the Age of Mordant Dyestuffs, and the
dyeing operations were of a complex nature. This led to many so-called
secret processes, the materials used and methods of handling being guarded
most carefully from .business rivals. In some cases they became a family
heritage, being handed down from father to son, great care being taken that
the knowledge should remain solely personal information, and this in many
cases resulted in ultra-conservatism, and stifled efforts that would have
been exerted in the line of practical improvement. Novelties were naturally
looked on with suspicion, and new methods, if generally known, were not
encouraged.
The colors resulting from the fact that these natural dyestuffs were
mordant colors and required more or less careful treatment in their produc-
tion, were generally considered "fast," in the sense of the term as now
regarded.
The development of the indigo trade during this period is also
notable. At first coming from the East or India, the Europeans had made
use of its coloring principle in preference to woad grown in their own
countries, and then, when it was found in America, it may be said to have
been generally distributed throughout the world. The basic principle of its
application has ahvavs been the same, that is, its transformation into soluble
indigo white and then re-oxidation into the insoluble blue color. The means
of bringing about the formation of indigo white during this period are very
curious. All sorts of mixtures were used, some causing fermentation and
others, in later years, producing reduction.
Toward the close of this development of the art of dyeing, the consump-
tion of these natural coloring matters increased to such an extent that great
efforts were made to extract and concentrate the coloring matters into a
i;8 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
more convenient form. This was done so effectively that the original
forms of the dyewoods were replaced by extracts of varying degrees of
concentration with all the properties preserved and the disadvantageous
impurities of the original dyeing material removed. This form may be said
to represent the highest development of the natural dyestuffs.
III. The Era of Synthetic Dyestuffs. — Before, however, the natural
dyestuff industry had reached its culmination, certain influences were at
work, which in a comparatively short time were destined to practically cause
its extinction, for with the advance and development of the science of
chemistry during the nineteenth century, came the investigations into the
nature of the dyestuffs and coloring matters in common use, and in 1856,
the discovery of Sir William Perkin, that a very brilliant coloring matter
could be made by chemical methods from coal-tar, marked the beginning
of the synthetic dyestuff industry. This color known as mauve, the subject
of the first coal-tar color patent, was the first of an ever-increasing number
of dyestuffs, which at that time were particularly attractive to the public,
on account of their previously unattainable brilliancy of shade and to the
practical dyer, on account of their ease of application on the fibre.
The discovery of mauve, Hoffman's violet, and similar colors, resulted
in a broadening of the investigations, and in 1858, Griess discovered the
diazo reaction, as it is termed, which is the basis of the largest group of
synthetic dyestuffs. The first of these introduced commercially was amido-
azo-benzene, manufactured by Sampson, Maule and Nicholson, in 1863, and
in the same year in England, Lightfoot discovered the method of dyeing
vegetable fibres with what is known as "aniline black." While his method
of application has been altered and improved, this black has come to be
considered the standard for cotton blacks and all other blacks are still
considered inferior.
While the coal-tar color industry was yet in its infancy, in 1868, Graebe
and Liebermann made a discovery that was in its results a very serious
attack on the use of natural dyestuffs. This was the synthesis of alizarine
from anthracene in coal-tar. Alizarine was at that time obtained from
madder root, and was the most important of the natural red dyestuffs. Tfie
result of this discovery in a short time was the production of alizarine on a
commercial scale from anthracene, and this soon reduced the trade in
madder and its preparations to practically nothing; thus changing the com-
merce of many countries by contracting the demand for an important
natural product, "Madder-red" continued to be known for some time, but
the actual product used was derived from coal-tar.
In the experiments with anilines and anthracenes and other derivatives
from coal-tar, it was found that by a process of building up, other coloring
matters could be obtained, some similar in nature, others differing widely
from the original material. With this encouragement always present, the
list of new dyestuffs grew steadily from year to year. The fluorescein colors
OF THE UNITED STATES 179
were introduced in 1874, three years after the discovery of the parent body.
In 1877-8 the sulphonated azo colors were placed on the market, opening
the large field of acid dyeing wool colors. Many additions were continu-
ously made to each of the known groups of colors, but in 1884 a new and
very important addition appeared.
Up to that time nearly all the colors required a mordant in dyeing
vegetable fibres not containing natural tannin. Either the fibre had to be
prepared with tannin, or alum, or some other metallic salt had to be used
in the dyebath, but in that year Boettiger produced Congo red, which dyed
unmordanted cotton in a bath containing common salt only. Other dyestuffs
belonging to this group appeared rapidly, and at the present time the
"Tetrazo Dyestufi's," ''One-Dip Colors," or whatever else they may be called,
outnumbered those of any other class.
Closely allied to these are the colors which are developed on the fibre.
The first of these, primuline, apeared in, 1887. Their advantage consists in
their comparative fastness to the processes of manufacturing. Under this
head may also be classed the insoluble azo colors, which are also formed
directly on the fibres. These were first put on the market in a workable
form in 1889, although the method had been suggested before. These colors,
with many additions and improvements, have been found to be of great
utility in the lake and pigment trade.
In 1873, 3 mysterious dyestufif, commercially known as "Cachou de
Laval," appeared. It was made by heating various organic substances with
sodium sulphide. This, while used for dyeing in a small way, was little
thought of until 1890, when the first sulphur blacks, made from coal-tar
derivatives, as raw materials, appeared. The production of these bodies led
to serious investigation of the possibilities of sulphide combinations and
the practical results can be seen in the large consumption of sulphur or
sulphide colors at the present time.
The colors during the first period of production of aniline dyestufifs
were noted especially for their brilliancy of shade and ease of application,
but after the novelty had worn of¥ it became necessary for them to meet
competition in the shape of the older natural coloring matters. Most of
them, when combined with suitable mordants, gave shades which, while
not as brilliant as the "aniline" colors, were much more permanent. This
led to the development of colors that would compare favorably with, or
excel the natural dyestufifs in regard to fastness. It was noted from the
first that the anthracene derivatives, as a rule, were faster than those from
aniline, and therefore, with the increasing demand for fastness, greater
attention was paid to the anthracene compounds, and this resulted in a full
line of dyestufifs, available either for mordant, acid, or vat dyeing, all
remarkable for their resistance to injurious influences.
Many of these are products of the last ten years. With the develop-
ment of the fast colors among the synthetic dyestufifs, the decline in the
i8o TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
consumption of natural dyestuffs, even for special purposes, began, and
with each step in advance of the one, the other receded. One-dip cotton
colors of sufificient fastness and with simple methods of dyeing, soon re-
placed logwood blacks and slates, and the introduction of chrome developed
blacks for wool, with much greater fastness to light, left little room for its
use on that material. Slowly, at first, but later more rapidly, the most
important of the natural dyestuffs lost ground, so that at the present time,
"as fast as logwood black" has no commercial meaning.
During all the changes involving the other colors, one natural dyestuff
held its place without question, and while many substitutes were proposed,
none were of any material use. But the synthetic dyestuff manufacturer
solved the problem at last, in the same manner as in the case of madder. As
early as 1880, a process had been invented by Dr. A. Baeyer. for the
tynthesis of indigotine from Toluene, but for years this was found to be
commercially unprofitable, until a new process was introduced by Heumann
in 1890, using benzine and naphthalene, as raw materials. Before this
method was technically successful, the Farbwerke of Hoechst, perfected a
method for the use of the original ortho-nitro-benzaldehyde process, and
started the manufacture of synthetic indigotine, commercially, in 1896, while
the Badische Aniline and Soda Fabrik, at the same time used Heumann's
process. It was soon after discovered that the addition of sodium amide
increased the yield of indigotine in the Heumann process, making it satis-
factorily economical, and at last the synthetic dvestuff makers were able to
dislodge natural indigo with indigo made synthetically from coal-tar.
As soon as the manufacturer was in a position to compete commercially
with the natural product, the market for the natural product fell off and
is growing smaller from year to year. At this time it can be said that there
is no market for the natural product, except where manufacturers are ultra-
conservative and in countries where it is indigenous. The total consumption
annually in tJie Ignited States is about 1,500,000 pounds of 100 per cent
indigotine. This may be said to be the commercial end of the natural
dyestuff as applied to textile fibres, and their use practically goes out with
the nineteenth century. The twentieth century, so far as we can now fore-
see, will be one of synthetic dyestuffs.
The synthetic dyestuff' industry originated in England, as the names
of the early colors indicate, but as technical education advanced more rapidly
in France and Germany, it was transferred successively to those countries.
At the present time, most of the manufacturing is in German hands, as
most of the works in other countries are subsidiaries of the German works.
As all these employ large corps of research chemists, the industry is steadfly
developing and advancing, and the era of synthetic dyestuffs, in which we
now live, is bound to produce coloring matters, the application of which will
be of benefit to consumers as offering advantages in cost, or in fastness.
OF THE UNITED STATES i8i
HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COAL-TAR DYE
INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES.
BY J. F. SCHOELLKOPF
To properly understand the causes of the slow development of this
industry in the United States, it will be advisable to give a short sketch of
its inception and progress in Europe up to the present time.
Though Perkin began the manufacture of coal-tar dyes in England,
in 1857, they were first produced on a considerable commercial scale in
France, and at a later date, their manufacture was taken up in Switzerland
and Germany. But while the growth of this new industry was not extra-
ordinary in the first named countries, the history of it in Germany reads
like a fairy tale. One can truthfully say that Germany's greatness and
present supremacy in the chemical arts, dates from the time it actively
engaged in the production of coal-tar dyes. From practically nothing in
1862, the value of the output of the German factories had risen to $6,000,000,
in 1874; to $12,500,000 in 1882; to $17,000,000 in 1890; and to over
$50,000,000 in 1907. This in the face of the fact that the products were
net only vastly improved in quality, but also very materially cheapened in
price (magenta from three dollars per pound to sixty cents ; aniline blue from
eight dollars per pound to seventy cents).
Germany has a capital of at least $100,000,000 invested in the industry
which gives employment to fully thirty thousand hands directly, and to at
least as many more indirectly. The amount of chemicals and other materials
consumed by this industry is simply stupendous, one factory alone using
300,000 tons of coal annually, and producing for its own consumption 150,-
ooc tons of sulphuric acid, besides enormous quantities of other mineral
acids and heavy chemicals. The main reason for this wonderful growth in
Germany, was probably the judicious co-operation of theory and practice,
the working together of factory and university, which in no other country
was carried out to the extent it was in Germany. During this period of
rapid development, it is obvious there could be no surplus of scientific or
expert manual help to start factories of a similar nature in America. All
the chemists that graduated from German universities, and who had chosen
this branch of chemistry as their specialty, immediately found remunerative
employment in one of the home factories. No one thought of leaving the
"Fatherland" and seeking his fortune elsewhere.
These conditions, however, changed radically about the year 1880. The
i82 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
universities and chemical schools had continued to turn out coal-tar chemists
in increasing numbers and the home factories were finally no longer able to
take care of all of them, and naturally they looked around for other fields
of operation.
At this time the United States apparently presented an inviting field.
The consumption of colors was already large and constantly increasing.
The import duty at that time was thirty-five per cent ad valorem, and fifty
cents per pound specific, which, taking into consideration the low prices the
■dyes had reached, was ample protection. There were, as yet, no colors
produced in this country, if one excepts the magenta turned out by the
now extinct Albany Aniline Color Works. They produced a small quantity
of poor magenta in a very crude way and had been doing this for ten years
without attempting to enlarge by adding new colors to their product. As
stated above, America presented an inviting field and during the years i8Sb
and 1883, no fewer than nine different plants for the manufacture of coal-tar
dyes were established. The prospect of becoming independent of other
nations for our supply of these important colors was bright indeed, until
the passage of the Tariff Act of July i, 1S83. This act abolished the
specific duty of fifty cents per pound; leaving ad valorem duty of thirty-five
per cent on coal-tar colors or dyes, and twenty per cent on coal-tar prepara-
tions not colors or dyes. This left a net protection for the colors of
nominally fifteen per cent, but it will appear later that even this meagre
protection was completely neutralized through various circumstances.
The evil effects of this adverse tariff legislation showed itself almost
immediately. No new factories were started, and within one year after the
new tariff took effect, five of those already established were forced to
succumb and go out of business. The remaining four would have gladly
followed their example but they had invested large sums of money in plants
(the Buffalo factory had expended about $500,000 in this way), which
would not have brought ten cents on the dollar if sold. So they decided to
continue to operate their factories, hoping for more favorable legislation in
the future. But thus far they have always been bitterly disappointed. At
€very tariff revision this industry, which if properly fostered would be of
such enormous importance to the chemical industry at large, has been
treated in a most unfair and unkind manner. The parties interested have
repeatedly asked for an increase of duty, which has as often been refused.
They have asked for a decrease of duty on raw material, which was only
partially acceded to in the Dingley Bill. As their raw materials are not
made in this country, and never will be under existing conditions, it is not
■comprehensible why this latter request has not been granted. They finally
petitioned Congress to change the phraseology of the paragraphs referring
to coal-tar colors and alizarine red, to prevent fraud and misunderstandings
at the Custom House. But even this just request, which was recommended
OF THE UNITED STATES 183
by the Appraisers' Department in New York, was only acceded to finally,
when the Dingley Bill went into effect.
It is true the Wilson Bill had placed coal-tar products, constituting part
of the raw material for the colors, on the free-list, but the duty on the colors
at the same time was placed so low that it fell short of covering the differ-
ence in cost of production between here and Germany. It is obvious that
under such conditions there was no incentive on the part of the American
manufacturers to increase their plants, and they continued to pursue a
waiting policy.
While the Dingley Bill was up for discussion, the American manu-
facturers of coal-tar dyes asked for free raw materials and a duty of thirty-
five per cent on the colors. The bill, as finally passed, placed the duty on
colors at thirty per cent, but, on the other hand, most of the coal-tar products
used in the manufacture of the dyes were again placed on the dutiable list.
The Dingley Tariff Bill improved matters to some extent, inasmuch as
the American manufacturers were now able to at least manufacture without
loss, those colors for which the raw material could be imported free of duty,
but for those colors that necessitated dutiable raw material, conditions were
worse than they had ever been before, in fact to even attempt to make this
class of colors, was altogether out of the question. The domestic production
has increased considerably during the last decade, but the increase would
have been far greater if this industry had received fair treatment at the
hands of Congress.
It would seem that if the American chemical manufacturers in par-
ticular, and the American people generally, realized the importance of the
aniline color industry, they would positively demand proper protection for
this industry. One can truthfully say that the chemical industry of no
country, can become really great unless the aniline color industry is properly
fostered. This statement is amply proven by the fact that Germany, with a
highly developed coal-tar color industry, leads in all chemical branches, while
England and France, who formerly predominated in this field, have fallen
far behind Germany, and only because they did not keep step with the latter
country in the development of the coal-tar color industry.
i84 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
FLAX: ITS CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE.
The cultivation of the flax plant ( Linum usitatissimum), for textile
purposes, dates from the remotest antiquity. The Egyptians over four thou-
sand years ago excelled in the art of manufacturing fine white linen, some of
which was comparable to our silken materials for smoothness and softness,
and so fine as to be transparent, as is evidenced by the burial bandages of
King Pepy and King Merere (2530 B. C.) and by a transparent overdress of
one of the kings of the Sixth Dynasty (1530 B. C.) now in the Berlin
Museum; in the same place are to be found combs for combing the flax.
The German writer Seitzen mentions the fact that he had found several
napkins within the folds of the covering on a mummy and that he had
them washed several times without injury and used with great veneration
"this venerable linen, which had been woven more than 1,700 years."
The Egyptians boiled their flax instead of "retting"' it and afterwards
hammered it to separate it from the outside; this is depicted on the monu-
ments of that ancient people; as well as the weaver plying his shuttle to the
warp of flax, and the peasants cultivating the flax in the fields much as it
is done to-day.
From the Egyptians, the cultivation of flax passed to Palestine ; there
is scarcely a book in the Old Testament in which flax and linen are not
mentioned. The Greek maidens in the time of Homer, spun the flax and
wove the linen as those of Egypt had done before them. From Greece the
manufacture of linen is traced to Rome, and the Romans doubtless carried
it to the barbaric northern nations, whom they conquered, and in a measure
civilized.
The common flax or lint, is an annual ; a native of Egypt, of some parts
of Asia, and of the south of Europe, not truly indigenous in Britain, but
now naturalized as it is in many other countries. The universal use of the
plant in all jiarts of the world is doubtless due to its physical stamina, which
is of the most enduring and diversified nature ; it grows to great perfection
amidst the snows and rigors of northern latitudes, and maintains a healthy
condition in sunnier and warmer climes. (See Plate 11.)
In the United .States it is grown largely, but merely for the seed and
oil, the process of its preparation for textile use, which must be done mainly
by hand, being too expensive and tedious for the American farmer.
The best flax for the purpose of manufacturing into linen is grown
in Belgium, where it is extensively cultivated, particularly in Southern
Brabant, Hainault, and West and East Flanders, where the most beautiful
OF THE UNITED STATES 185
flax is spun for conversion into Brussels and Mechlin lace ; that flax grown
and prepared at Courtrai being particularly desirable. The flax of these
countries sells at from $350 to $2,000 a ton, while that used for the laces
mentioned above, has been known to be sold, when hackled, at $20 a pound,
or nearly $45,000 a ton. At least half of the flax for manufacturing
purposes is grown in Russia. In India, flax is grown mainly for the seed.
The flax of New Zealand is a valuable fibre, quite distinct from the common
flax and is obtained from the leaves of an endogenous, instead of the stem
of an exogenous plant. Linum usitatissimum is an annual plant and grows
with a slender upright stem, branched near the top ; the seed is sown in
April, the plant blossoms in June or July, and the seed commonly ripens in
September. The fibre of which flax is composed, when examined under a
microscope, appears to consist of smooth transparent tubes intersected at
short intervals by joints or knots similar to the bamboo or other reeds. This
fibre, spun into yarn, is manufactured into linen cloth.
According to the analysis of Liebig, flax is composed of:
Carbon 38.72
Hydrogen 7.33
Nitrogen 0.56
Oxygen 48.39
Ashes 5.04
The flax being sufficiently ripened, is pulled only in dry weather, the
stalks being kept even, like a brush, at the root end, and the short stems kept
separate from the long ones ; on the following day it is "rippled," to take off
the seeds. The "rippling" machine consists of an instrument like a comb
with iron teeth, round, smooth and tapering, about twelve inches long,
fastened into a wooden frame and placed so close that the pods cannot pass
through. This frame is placed at the end of a plank or long stool on which
the operator sits.
The next process is to obtain the fibre free from the woody core or boon
of the stem ; this operation is called retting, and has to be very carefully per-
formed. The bundles of flax are steeped in water till the boon begins to
rot, when it can be readily separated from the fibre. When it has been
sufficiently steeped, the flax is spread out on the grass to complete the de-
composition of the boon. In some districts, the practice is to place the flax
on the grass and allow the dew and rain to "ret" it, which requires a much
longer time and is not feasible where land is valuable. Attempts have been
made to remove the fibre by machinery without retting it, but the fibre so
obtained is inferior in quality. There are several methods which are success-
fully applied to facilitate the process of retting, by which a much greater
amount of the fibres is extracted from each ton of straw, with a great gain
also in the time of preparation. In 1847, Mr. R. B. Schenck, of New York,
i86 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
introduced into Ireland a method which, though it was by no means new,
having been proposed by Professor Schudweiler in Belgium, and tried in
Holland several years before, and also employed by the Malays and the
natives of Bengal, was of great service in leading to further experimentation
and vastly superior results. (See Plate ii.)
Schenck's method, which is now little used, was to place the flax in vats
in which it was kept down by means of a strong framework ; water is then
run into the vats and is absorbed by the flax ; steam is now admitted till
the temperature of the water is raised to and maintained at about ninety
degrees Fah. Fermentation sets in in a few hours and is maintained for
about sixty hours, when the decomposition of the gummy or resinous matter
in the stalk is completed. The mucilaginous water is then withdrawn from
the vat, the flax taken out, separated and dried, either in the open air or in
desiccating rooms, according to circumstances.
Watt's method, which with the improvements of Pownall, is the pre-
ferred system, consists of a chamber with a perforated bottom, in which the
flax is laid ; the top of the chamber is double and is filled with water to act
as a condenser. Steam is admitted to the case, which frees the flax from
certain volatile oils. The steam rising to the top of the chamber is condensed
by contact with it, and falls in showers on the flax beneath. In thirty-six
hours the flax is taken out, and passed between rollers in the direction of
its length, which presses out the water and decomposed gum, and splits and
flattens the straw. Mr. Bower, of Leeds, England, rolled the stalks after
steeping in cold or warm water, then steeped them and rolled them again.
The most rapid process is to steep the flax for a short time and then exhaust
the air from its fibres by means of an air pump. If this process is twice
repeated, the gelatinous matter is removed in a few hours. The introduction
of chemicals, to hasten the fermentation, is objectionable because of its
weakening the fibres.
The flax prepared by Schenck's method made a coarser yarn than that
from Watt's, and lOO tons of straw by Schenck's process yielded 5.90 tons of
fibre; 100 tons of straw by Watt's process yielded 12.20. By Pownall's
invention, the flax, after steeping, is passed between heavy rollers, after it is
taken from the vats, clean water being kept flowing over the stems during
the operation, to remove the gummy matters.
The flax, when retted and dried, is next passed through a machine
having numerous fluted rollers, some of which have a reciprocating motion ;
this thoroughly breaks the brittle wood parts of the stems, and prepares
it for the operation of scutching, which is now mainly done by scutching
machines. Brushing machines are sometimes used to finally clean the flax
before baling it for the market.
From the earliest period of recorded history up to the eighteenth
century, the manufacturing of linen was one of the most extensive domestic
industries of European countries ; it was most largely developed in Russia,
,„ M.S
•^ in «5
Eg
23 X
OF THE UNITED STATES 187
Austria, Germany, Holland and Belgium, the northern provinces of France
and certain parts of England, in the northern parts of Ireland, and throughout
Scotland, the importance of the industry is shown by the special laws made
in those countries to protect and foster it. Some notable specimens of
figured-stuflfs such as damasks, made of linen, or of silk and linen, in Spain
and Italy as early as the fourteenth century, are seen in several industrial
art museums in England and in Europe. The ground of the celebrated
Bayeux tapestry, which was made in the eleventh century, is of linen.
Flanders was celebrated as early as the eleventh century for the weaving of
table linen, and many Flemish weavers from that time on, settled in England,
where the linen manufacture was fostered by bounties.
The first mill for spinning linen yarn by machinery was built in Darling-
ton, England, in 1787, the machines being the inventions of John Kendrew
and Thomas Porthouse, who, in 1787, obtained a patent for a mill or
machine on new principles for spinning yarn from hemp, flax or wool. In
Scotland, the first flax spinning mill was erected in 1790, near Glarnis, and
several were shortly afterwards established in Fife. By degrees, these
machines, crudely imperfect as they were, were developed by innumerable
improvements and modifications into the perfect system of machinery with
which the spinning mills of to-day are fitted, though the mechanical devices
for the spinning of linen were slower of development than those for
cotton; indeed, the speedy development of the cotton industry had a dis-
astrous effect upon the manufacture of linen. In 1810, Napoleon, to foster
the industries of France, oft'ered a million francs to the next person who
should invent the best machine for spinning flax and almost immediately
Philippe de Girard patented in France, important inventions for the spinning
of flax, wet or dry. He failed, however, to receive the promised reward, nor
was his genius recognized by his countrymen, but be met with more recogni-
tion abroad, for in 181 5, he was invited by the Austrian government to
establish a spinning mill at Hirtenberg, near Vienna, which was run with
his machinery for several years, but was not a commercial success.
Flax goes to the mills in bales, where it undergoes the operations of
hackling, preparing and spinning, before it is woven into cloth.
Hackling, or heckling, the first preparatory process, not only combs
out and disentangles and lays smooth and parallel the separate fibres, but it
also splits up and disintegrates the strands of fibre which up to this point
are agglutinated togetlicr. This, until recent times, was i)erformed by hand,
and was a very important operation, requiring much skill and dexterity; a
certain amount of hand heckling is still done in Ireland and on the Continent.
The general principles of the several machines for hackling are the
same, though there is some variation in their construction. The machine
consists of endless leathern sheets moving over rollers placed at some
distance apart with proper driving-gear. A number of heckle stocks placed
at regular intervals are fixed on the surface of these sheets or bands, two
i88 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
of which are placed opposite to, and so near each other that their respective
heckle pins intersect where the actual heckling takes place. At this part
of their course, the sheets move in a nearly vertical direction downward,
and heckle the flax, which is fixed in a holder and hangs down between
the sheets. (See Plate ii.)
Preparing. — The operations in this stage are varied, the object being
the assortment of the dressed line into qualities suitable for spinning the
different counts of yarn, and the drawing out of the fibres to a perfectly
uniform sliver containing an equal quantity of fibre in any given length.
The "stricks" are first sorted and are then passed to the spreading and
drawing frames, a series of machines all similar in construction, i. The
spreading frame, where the flax is formed into a continuous ribbon or
sliver ; 2, The drawing frames, on which this sliver is doubled and drawn
out by rollers through travelling gills with steel teeth. There are usually
three drawing frames, though sometimes four are used, each machine having
finer teeth than the one before it. The object of this careful process is to
produce a sliver of uniform size throughout, in which all the fibres are
parallel. Then follows the roving frame, through which the sliver is passed
singly. Though similar to the drawing frame, this machine has in addition
a flyer and bobbin; the former slightly twists the sliver and winds it upon
the bobbin.
The rovings are now spun ; the fine yarns being spun wet with water
at a temperature of 125 degrees F., dry spinning being used for the coarser
yarns. ( See Plate 11.)
In weaving, the hand loom is still used in fine linens, though the power
loom is now universally used for the weaving of ordinary linen goods.
There are many obstacles to be met in the application of the power loom to
the weaving of linen — the principal difticulty being the hardness and lack
of elasticity of the linen wefts, and this and the pertinacious competition of
the hand weavers delayed the adoption of power machinery for linen
weaving for some years. The various operations of weaving linen on power
looms do not differ from those employed in weaving cotton, nor is there
any significant modification of the machines employed. The yarn is treated
v/ith flour paste and dried before being wound on the beam.
Bleaching. — There are in linen, intermingled with the fibres, which
constitute the thread, minute particles of the woody parts of the flax which
add greatly to the difficulty of bleaching the fabric ; were it not for these
fragments there would be no more difiiculty in bleaching linen than there
is in bleaching cotton.
The process of bleaching linen consists in steeping it in cold water for
several hours, for the purpose of removing the flour size used in the
weaving, after which it is boiled in a large iron vessel heated by steam in
a weak solution of corbonate of soda, lime water and gum fustic. It is
boiled under slight pressure for twelve hours in this fluid; then it is
OF THE UNITED STATES 189
thoroughly washed and spread out on the grass from five to eight days.
After two or three such treatments, the Hnen is immersed in a strong lather
of soap and subjected to the action of two fluted pieces of wood, moving
in alternate horizontal directions. Then after another boiling and exposure
on the grass, it is dipped for twelve hours in a weak solution of vitriol.
The number of the operations varies much according to the kind of
linen to be bleached, the process being extremely long and tedious. After
being properly bleached, washed, and dried, the linen is "finished" by
passing it through a solution of starch which is squeezed out between
rollers ; it is then put through a heavy calendering machine or beetling mill
for the purpose of imparting a glossy finish and is then made up into
pieces for sale.
Linen is manufactured in most European countries and in Russia;
France, Belgium, and Great Britain being the principal manufacturing
centres. France is celebrated for her cambrics and beautiful damasks. In
the United Kingdom, the finest fabrics are made in Belfast and other places
in Ulster, and consist of lawn and cambric handkerchiefs, surplice linens,
printed linen for gowns, damask table linens, shirtings, sheetings, and
towellings of superior quality. At Dunfermline and other places in Fife,
Scotland, diaper, towelling, damasks, and plain fabrics of medium weight
are largely produced. Upholstery linen is made at Kirkcaldy ; similar goods
are manufactured at Barnsley, in Yorkshire, but Leeds is the chief seat of
the manufacture in England. Heavy fabrics, such as sailcloth, canvas and
sacking, are the mostly made in Forfarshire.
The linen industry has nf^ve*- attained a firm standing in the L^nited
States. Efforts were made to promote the growth of flax in colonial times
and to introduce the spinning and weaving of linen goods, but the in-
vention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney placed in the hands of the
American people a fibre that was cheaper, easier to manipulate, requiring
less care in its preparation, and easier by far to spin and weave than is flax.
Then America is the home of cotton, and there is no American pro-
duction of the flax fibre suitable for spinning, nor do the long and tedious
processes necessary to convert it into a salable commodity commend them-
selves to the American farmer. The linen industry at the present time
is not extensive in the LTnited States, still the increase in the past twenty
years has been great, and there are certain fields of the linen industry
which American manufacturers occupy to a great advantage ; for these
branches, they import the flax in bale. There is a large demand for
linen carpet-yarns; the shoe manufacturing industry of the L^nited
States calls for an immense amount of linen thread, and in the pro-
duction of these two articles the American manufacturers are unrivalled.
The market ia towrls and towelling is practically unlimited, and Ameri-
can manufacturers are engaging largely in the production of those
goods. The readjustment of the tariff in 1897, rendered it possible for them
I go
TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
to compete with the foreign production by reducing the duty on such yarns
as are required in these special lines of goods to a revenue basis, and
increasing the duty on the manufactured articles. Several large cotton
manufacturing establishments are engaged in this industry and consume
1,500,000 pounds of linen yarn annually.
Besides the above there were in 1905, fifteen establishments engaged in
the manufacture of linen goods with a combined capital of $6,293,878;
employing on an average, 3,811 persons; value of products, $5,856,388.
OF THE UNITED STATES IQI
HEMP, JUTE AND KINDRED FIBRES
While the term hemp should properly be applied only to the bast fibre
of the plant Cannabis sativa, it is applied indiscriminately to the fibres of
widely differing plants ; so generally is this done, that it would often be mis-
leading to use the word without a prefix, such as Russian hemp, sisal hemp,
sunn hemp and scores of others that relate to entirely distinct kinds of
fibres. Cannabis sativa is an annual herb, having angular rough stems and
altcrnate-lobed leaves; it belongs to the same natural order as the hop, and,
like it, has both male and female plants, a circumstance which necessitates
two gatherings of the same crop — the male ripening and dying earlier in the
season than the female. The height of the plant varies according to the
season, and, though it sometimes grows about fifteen feet, it com-
monly is about eight to ten feet high. There is but one species of true hemp
known, the C. indica and C. Chiensis, owing their differences to climate and
losing many of their peculiarities when grown in temperate regions.
Hemp supposedly originated in some part of temperate Asia, spread
westward through Europe and southward through the Indian peninsula. It
grows wild to this day on the banks of the Ural and the Volga, extends to
Persia, the Altai range and Northern and Western China. It is also found
in Kashmir and on the Himalayas, growing vigorously at an altitude of
6,000 or even 10,000 feet.
Hemp has been employed for its fibre from remote antiquity. It is men-
tioned by Herodotus as growing both wild and cultivated in Scythia, and he
describes the hempen garments of the Thracians as equal to linen in fine-
ness; Hesychius tells us that the Thracian women wove sheets of hemp;
and Moschion, who wrote about 200 B. C, records the use of hempen ropes
for rigging the ship "Syracusia," built for Micro II. It is of equal antiquity
in India, having been cultivated there for its fibre as well as for use as a
drug, while the medicinal and intoxicating properties of the plant have
probably been known in Oriental countries from the very earliest times.
An ancient Chinese herbal, part of which is dated 500 B. C, while the rest
is of a still earlier date, notices the seed and flower-bearing kinds of hemp.
Hemp is continually referred to as a remedy by early writers, and its use
for medicinal and dietetic purposes spread throughout India, Persia and
Arabia in the Middle Ages. In some countries, notably Persia, Northern
India, Arabia, many parts of Africa and Brazil, the plant is still mainly
grown for its gum. In addition to the fibre and resin, it yields an oily seed
192 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
used as a food for singing birds, and in very slight proportion as feed for
cattle.
Hemp is grown for its fibre in the United States, Italy, Germany. Rus-
sia, Holland, Htmgary, Turkey, England and Ireland, and to some extent
in India, and it thrives well in Algeria, the finest being grown in Italy,
though the Italian is almost equalled by the Russian fibre. Hemp is sub-
jected to much the same methods of preparation as flax, being broken,
retted, scutched and combed or hackled. (See Plate 12.)
Hemp seed was ordered for Plymouth Colony as early as 1629. It is
chiefly grown in the States of Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana
and New York. The production of hemp in the United States reached its
highest point in the year 1859, the amount raised being 148,986,000 pounds;
since then it has declined 137.235,370 pounds, the decline during the last de-
cade being 11,271,370 pounds, or forty-nine per cent. Several reasons exist
for this declension, among which are the introduction of Manila hemp, the
large importation of jute, the decline in prices of hard cordage fibres, such
as sisal, and the use of cotton for twine and yarns.
Abaca, or Manila hemp, is a structural fibre obtained from the leaf
sheath of the plant, Musa textilis, a species of the banana family. The
Musa is quite a large and specialized genus, some of the species compris-
ing several varieties. The Filipinos divide it into three groups : the plants
which produce the edible banana of commerce (Visaya sagiry) ; abaca,
which produces the fibre we are now describing; and the wild banana (pacol),
which has no defined economic value, though it, in common with all the
rest of the species, produces a fibre of more or less strength. Abaca is
indigenous only to the Philippine Islands, and there only has it been suc-
cessfully cultivated, though it has been introduced into India, Borneo, the
West Indies, Florida and other parts of the world, the plant itself growing
fairly well, but the fibre being of an inferior quality. In 1873 't was in-
troduced into the Andaman Islands with a little better success, the best
fibre there produced being about equal to the medium from the Philippines.
Though grown throughout the Philippine Archipelago, it thrives best in
those provinces where there is an abundant rainfall and a high relative
humidity of the atmosphere, requiring a uniformly moist and warm climate.
The first authentic account of abaca in the Philippines is given by William
Dampier, an Englishman who voyaged among the Philippines in 1686 and
wrote a full and interesting account of those islands. He mentions "the
fibre of the banana tree" and the women as wearing scarfs or sashes made
from it. The fibre was first exported from the islands about the beginning
of the eighteenth century, but the exports were unimportant until about 1850.
In 1820 John White, a lieutenant in the American Navy, brought a sample
of abaca to Salem, Mass., and from 182^ to 1827 the fibre began to be used
quite extensively in Salem and Bo.'ston.
The abaca plant grows to a height of fifteen to twenty-five feet, the
OF THE UNITED STATES 193
leaves are oblong, and it hears a non-edible fruit, containing seed. Primi-
tive methods are still in use on the abaca plantations. The trunk of the
abaca is twelve or fifteen feet long and about a foot and a half in diameter,
around which are a large number of thick, overlapping layers, each layer
being the stem or petiole of a leaf. The fibre is obtained from the outer
portions of these leaf stems. These fibrous strips being removed, are next
drawn between the edge of a knife or balo and a hard, smooth block. The
apparatus consists of two uprights set in the ground, to which a horizontal
pole is affixed with rattan canes. A short, strong knife, with a wooden
handle, is firmly attached on a pivot or fulcrum to the upper surface of the
horizontal pole, the handle being attached by a rattan cane to a bamboo
spring in the roof of the shed or the limb of a tree, under w^hich the opera-
tion is performed. Another rattan cane is attached to a treadle which is
worked by the foot of the operator. The spring in the roof above holds
the knife upon the pole, while the fibre is being drawn beneath it. Pres-
sure on the treadle releases this and allows a new! strip to be inserted. This
method is extravagantly wasteful, and, though several attempts have been
made to perfect machines for doing the work of extraction economically,
none have as yet proved wholly successful. The introduction of suitable
machinepi' will do much to increase the abaca industry. (See Plate 12.)
After being stripped, the fibre is hung to dry upon bamboo poles for
the space of two or three days, and, when dry, is tied in bundles and con-
veyed to the nearest market, the exporter sorting it and making it up into
bales of 275 pounds each. The fibre for the home manufacture of cloth is
more elaborately treated. Of a glossy white color, light and strong, of
clean, even texture and eight to twelve feet long, abaca fibre is infinitely
superior to any other fibre in the making of cordage, particularly for ships'
ropes, its lightness being a marked feature of its value. Tested against a
rope of English hemp, both cords being three and one-quarter inches in cir-
cumference and two fathoms long, the English rope broke under a strain
of 3,885 pounds, the Manila rope stood a strain of 4,669 pounds before
giving way In a second tc't of a rope one and three-quarter inches in cir-
cumference, the Manila rope broke with 1,490 pounds, the English, with
1. 184.
A very large percentage of the production of abaca fibre is used in the
manufacture of cordage, twine, ropes and cables. Immense amounts are
used in the United States in the production of binder twine, Manila paper
being manufactured from old disintegrated ropes. In the Philippines, al-
though a large quantity is used for cordage, its most important use is for
the weaving of cloth for wearing apparel, for which purpose looms are to
be found in nearly every town in the islands, the fibres being frequently
combined with either cotton or silk, the fabrics being of every degree of fine-
ness. In Europe also, especially in I'rance, many articles of clothing are
made from abaca, such as shirts, vests, veils, crapes, neckerchiefs, robes and
194 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
women's hats, these goods being highly esteemed both for beauty and dura-
bility. The fibre is also used for upholstery, packing, brush-making and
fish-nets.
Simn is the fibre of the Crotelaria juncea, a leguminous plant, a native
of India. It strongly resembles Spanish broom, but is an annual. Sunn
has long been cultivated in India for its fibre, which is cleared by retting.
While the fibre is not so strong as that of hemp, good cables, canvas and
cloth are made of it. Much of it is imported into Great Britain. It is called
Bengal hemp, brown hemp, etc.
.Sisal hemp is the fibre of the henequin plant of Yucatan, Agave rigida
elongata. This plant has been utilized for centuries, having supposedly been
initiated by the Toitecs in Yucatan about A. D. 1060; but it is only within
a comparatively few years that it has become of commercial importance.
In 1783 a commission appointed by the Royal Spanish Navy investigated
this fibre and reported favorably upon it. In 1839 an association was formed
in Yucatan to promote the cultivation, but the crude and imperfect methods
of extracting the fibre at that time prevented the success of the under-
taking. The movement led, however, to the off'er of a rew^^ard of $10,000,
Mexican, by the state government to the inventor of a satisfactory ma-
chine, which resulted in the invention of the "raspador," from which have
been evolved the improved automatic machines which have made the sisal
industry what it is to-day.
From Yucatan, sisal hemp has been introduced into the Bahamas, where
the industry has attained considerable importance and become firmly estab-
lished. In 1893. 20,000 sisal plants were imported into Hawaii by the Com-
missioner of Agriculture and Forestry, and some years later the Hawaiian
Fibre Co. was founded, and in 1903 it was calculated that there vwre fully
10,000 acres of sisal under cultivation in Hawaii. The plant has also been
introduced into the Mauritius, the Caicos Islands, Cape Colony, Natal, Wesf
Africa, .Australia and India. (See Plate 12.)
Sisal was introduced into Florida by Dr. Henry Perrine about 1836 and
'37, and .some was planted at Indian Key and some planted at Biscayne Bay.
and from this the plant spread rapidly, though little was done until late
years to promote its cultivation.
The true sisal plant, Agave rigida sisalana, is a native of Hawaii, and
has been introduced into the Philippine Islands with very satisfactory re-
sults. This plant is very closely allied to the maguey of the Philippine
Islands, which has recently been identified as Agave cantula. One acre will
yield about 730 pounds of fibre, and its market value approximates that of
sisal. (See Plate 12.)
In 1880 there were 165 establishments manufacturing cordage and
twine in the United States, with a capital of $7,140,475: in 1890 there were
150 establishments, with a capital of $23,351,883; and in 1900 there were
105 establishments, with a capital amounting to $29,275,470; in 1905 there
PLATE XII~Hemp and Sisal
1. Cutting tlie Hemp.
2. Breaking the Same.
3. Hackling.
4. Stripping and Scraping.
". Fibres of Hemp and Manila.
(j. Sisal Field.
7. Cutting Leaves.
8. Trimming of Thorns.
9. Loading Leaves on Cars.
JAMES H LAMB CO-
OF THE UNITED STATES 195
were 103 establishments, with a capital of $37,110,521 ; the decrease in the
number of establishments being caused by the frequent consolidation of
several small plants under one incorporation.
Sisal hemp and maguey are used in the United States principally for
binder twine, tarred lath and fodder yarns, and for other cordage purposes.
In Yucatan and South America sisal is employed in the manufacture of
saddlecloths, hammocks, girdles, bridles, cordage nets and lines, while in
the Philippines a great deal of maguey is produced for local consumption.
The maguey plant was probably introduced into the Philippine Islands from
Mexico. It is now cultivated in nearly every province of the archipelago.
The fibre of the plant, which is white and finer and longer than the Hawaiian
or Yucatan varieties, is obtained from the leaves; it is four to five feet in
length, more wavy and fluffy than abaca, and also is extraordinarily elastic,
which renders it of great value when used for cordage liable to be sub-
jected to a sudden strain. In strength it is superior to sunn or to Russian
hemp, coir, or jute, but inferior to abaca. The problem now encountering the
planter is that of machinery for extracting the fibre in an expeditious and
economical manner, retting now being the most common method of freeing
the fibre, few of the planters up to now being in a position either to pur-
chase the proper machines or to use them to advantage. Practically all of
the Philippine maguey is shipped to Manila and baled on abaca presses
New Zealand hemp is a fibre obtained from the leaves of the Phormium
tenax (of the order Liliacea?). It is a native of New Zealand, the Chatham
Islands and Norfolk Islands, and has been introduced into the Azores for
economic purposes. The fibre has always been of importance among the
Maoris as yielding material for clothing, mats, cordage, fishing-lines, etc.
The leaves for fibre-yielding purposes come to maturity every six months,
and the crop is therefore gathered twice a year. The material is harvested
with immense care by the Maoris, only the properly matured fibres being
selected. These are collected in water, scraped over the edge of a shell to
free them from adhering tissues, and washed often in a running stream.
This operation is necessarily very wasteful, and various methods have been
resorted to for the accomplishment of the same purpose by mechanical means,
or by retting with alkaline agents, but the quality of the fibre was greatly
impaired, and no means have as yet been discovered whereby the fibre can
be produced in the perfect condition in which it is hand-prepared by the
Maoris. It is a cream-colored fibre, with a fine silky gloss, and is capable
of being woven into the heavier textures for which flax is used, either alone
or in combination with flax. It is principally used as a cordage fibre and as
an adulterant of Manila hemp, being second only to the latter in tensile
strength, though it is vastly more pervious to the effects of water. It is
used also for the bands of self-binding reaping machines.
Jute or Jews' Mallow belongs to the genus Corchorus, eight species of
which are recognized in India; two of these are extensively and widely
196 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
cultivated and supply the jute of commerce. Both have been introduced
into the United States. The first of these, Corchorus capsulares, is an annual
plant, growing four or five feet high. The "seedpods" are short and
globular, rough and wrinkled." Corchorus olitorius is similar to the first,
the chief difference lying in the fact that the seedpod is long and cylindrical,
and of the thickness of a quill. The fine silky texture of its fibre and its
adaptability for spinning purposes, and also the ease with which it is
cultivated, have much to do with the popularity of jute. Many of the
American plants, now classed as weeds, produce stronger and better fibre,
but their cultivation is as yet experimental. The fibre of jute is em-
ployed in three forms of manufacture; it is woven into fine and coarse
fabrics; it is made into fine twines and cordage, and it enters into the
manufacture of paper in the forms of "jute butts." The chief seat
of the jute-growing industry is in India, and its manufacture is a very
important industry in that country. Jute occupies the fourth place in
the export list of India. In 1862 India exported 10,000,000 pounds of
fibre and rope, and 300,000,000 yards of gunny cloth, and in the same year
Great Britain employed more than 30,000 spindles in spinning 80,000,000
pounds of Indian jute. One factory at Barnagpoor, near Calcutta, annually
manufactures 30,000,000 pounds of jute. In 1872 the total exportation of
Indian jute was 700,000,000 pounds, of which Great Britain received up-
wards of 395,000,000 pounds. In 1894-5 the exports of jute from India
were nearly 649,000 tons.
More than half a century ago, some Scotchmen were impressed with
an idea of the value of jute as a wearing material; they engaged in its
experimental manufacture at Dundee, and after many repulses and difficul-
ties were successful in discovering admirable processes of bleaching and
dyeing the fibre. It is now successfully mixed with cotton, linen and silk,
and is a material part of twilled stair-carpeting and of low-priced broad-
cloth. In combination with other textiles, it enters into the manufacture of
a thousand articles of commerce, it imitates the gloss of linen, the lustre of
silk, and the splendor of Axminster, Kidderminster, Brussels, and Venetian
carpets. In 1872, there were in Dundee about one hundred jute mills,
using more than 180,000,000 pounds of the raw material annually, and in
1883, the annual value of the flax, hemp, and jute manufactured in Dundee
had reached the value of $15,000,000. To the jute industry, the city of
Dundee owes its commercial prosperity and standing.
In the tenth U. S. census, only four establishments for the manufacture
of jute are recorded; the number of these establishments in the twelfth
census being eighteen, with a capital of $7,027,293 ; the annual value of
their production being $5,383,797. In 1905, there were sixteen establish-
ments with a capital of $11,019,132.
The flax, hemp and jute industries are so closely allied, owing to the
fact that the three materials are often used in the establishments coming
OF THE UNITED STATES 197
under either of the single heads that it is necessary to group them for
statistical purposes.
The infancy of the cordage industry in the United States was marked
by no phenomenal growth, though rope-making was undoubtedly one of
the earlier industries of the colonies. The work in the old rope walks was
done by hand mainly; later, came horse or water power. After 1830, came
the evolution of the modern factory, with rapid modern machinery, as in
kindred industries. The era of the largest mills began in 1878, the manufac-
ture being largely confined to the different Atlantic seaports, with the
greatest percentage in Massachusetts. The decline of American shipping
changed this, and numerous cordage factories sprang up all over the
country, especially after the great demand for binder twine, caused by the
invention of the self-binding harvester.
In 1843, the total amount of Manila hemp manufactured in the United
States was only 27,820 bales, or 27,511,400 pounds. In 1863, the industry
had increased to five times its size in 1843, and the War of the Rebellion
brought a great demand for cordage, so that hemps accordingly advanced
in price.
In i860, the first importations of sisal hemp were made, but it rapidly
became an important factor in the industry and its use rapidly extended in
the following ratio:
Years. Tons.
i860 200
1870 3.500
1880 13.000
1890 34.000
1895 50,000
In the cordage and twine factories, the amount of raw hemp and jute
used in 1900 was as follows:
Hemp. Amount. Value.
Manila 123,241,820 $8,916,493
Sisal 146,352,853 8,827,131
New Zealand 6,344,371 352,528
Russian
Rough 1,175,605 73,165
Tow 44,090 1,969
Line 349,558 25,063
198 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Italian
Rough 3,422,104 256,582
Tow 305,917 20,969
Line 296,920 27,752
American
Rough 10,871,865 506,767
Tow 3,011,004 104,660
Line 1,258,266 63,965
Jute
Butts : 25,767,800 786,967
Yarns 74,281,100 1,107,899
Jute 339.051 21,070
Silk 4,774 24,414
Yarn 1,100 3450
Worsted 682 308
All other materials .... 3,714,812
Ramie is a plant belonging to the Urticacese or nettle family, which
from time immemorial has been cultivated in China. It is known to botanists
as Boehmeria nivea, and is also known as "China grass" and "rhea." It
has also long been cultivated in Japan, Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and the East
Indies, and during the last century was introduced into other countries,
reaching the United States in 1855.
The plant, when fully grown, is four to eight feet high. It is of
rapid growth and produces from two to five crops a year without replanting.
In China and Japan, where the fibre is naturally extracted by hand labor,
it not only enters into the manufacture of cordage, fish lines, nets, etc.,
but is also woven into the most delicate and beautiful of fabrics. In
England, France, and Germany, it has been put to the widest range of uses,
being woven into a great variety of fabrics such as lace, lace curtains, cloth
or white goods resembling fine linen, dress goods, napkins, table damask,
table covers, bed spreads, drapery for curtains or lambrequins, plush, and
even carpets. The fibre is susceptible to dyes of all shades and colors,
and is sometimes finished with a lustre equal to silk. Its characteristics give
it first rank in value as a textile substance ; it is the least affected by damp
of any of the fibres, and is one of the most durable, being three times as
strong as Russian hemp, while its filaments can be separated almost to the
fineness of silk. It can be used with silk, wool or cotton, and in certain
forms of manufacture where elasticity is not essential can be used as a
substitute for all of these textiles, as well as for flax. It is utilized in the
manufacture of celluloid with much success and produces superior paper.
As yet, it has not been grown to any extent in any country except
China and Japan, owing to the difficulty of decortication. It is asserted that
the first attempt to decorticate ramie by machinery was made in India, in
OF THE UNITED STATES
199
1816, a flax and hemp machine being sent out from England for that purpose.
Little was done during the next fifty years, but about i860 the subject was
resumed, and in France many machines have been invented, having the
decortication of ramie as their object. The Favier machine, the Armand-
Barbier, the Michotte, the Landtsheer machines are all undergoing experi-
mentation, as are several American machines. Up to the present, the
machines have been too costly and too slow in their results to encourage the
cultivation of ramie upon a great scale.
TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
ROPEMAKING AND ROPEMAKING MATERIALS
The story of the making of rope must needs be almost as old as the
story of the liuman race. Prehistoric man must have had occasion to use
cords or lines from the very earliest times, and ropemaking must have
antedated the weaving of the first textile fabrics. Certain it is that the
ancient civilized nations were proficient in the art. Upon Egyptian monu-
ments are depicted various uses of that material, and specimens of Egyptian
ropes of hemp covered v.'ith woven cotton, ropes of palm fibre, made nearly
four thousand years ago, ropes of papyrus and ropes of plaited leathern
thongs are in existence to-day. The Chaldeans, the Assyrians, the Israelites,
must also have possessed a knowledge of ropemaking, without which no sail-
ing vessels would be possible. China is known to have made rope at a very
remote time.
Herodotus, to whom we are so greatly indebted for our knowledge of
the manners and custonis of ancient nations, makes numerous references to
rope. He tells us that Xerxes, when invading Greece (480 B. C), crossed
the Hellespont on two bridges of boats, which were held together by im-
mense cables stretched from shore to shore, a distance of nearly a mile.
There were six of these ropes to each bridge, and they were twenty-eight
inches in circumference, eight of them being made of flax and four of
papyrus. The "Syracusia," that famous galley built for Hiero, King of
Syracuse, by Archimedes (287-212 B. C), was rigged with hempen rope
from the island of Rhodes.
Savage tribes, too, all over the world, but more particularly those
living in the vicinity of waters, have for untold thousands of years pos-
sessed the skill to make ropes and cords from an immense variety of
materials, with more or less perfection of workmanship. As samples
of these may be mentioned the native Peruvians, who use^l among other
materials one called "totora." The tribes of the South Sea Islands are
expert at making rope, for which they have abundance of native materials.
The North American Indians manufactured ropes and cordage from such
plants as cotton, yucca, agave, dogfanc, nettle ; from the inner bark of
trees, such as linden, willow and elm ; from the fibrous roots of other
trees, such as spruce and pine, and from the hair, skins and sinews of
various animals. The Nootka Indians of Vancouver Island made rope
for the purpose of harpooning whales from the sinews of the whale,
bound together with small cord.
The name rope is applied to all varieties of cordage having a cir-
OF THE UNITED STATES 201
cumference of an inch or more. Twisted cordage of smaller dimensions
is known as cords, twines and lines, all these varieties being composed of
at least two, and in most cases of many separate yarns. From the
smallest sizes and kinds to the largest, the whole art of manufacture is
simply a twisting together by various means the fibres and yams proper
for the purpose. Modern rope-making requires the use of very strong
machinery, owing to the comparative coarseness and heaviness of the ma-
terials used.
The twisting of the fibres together in a rope is essential, in order
that by mutual friction they may be held together when a strain is inflicted
upon the whole ; the application of just the proper amount of twist is a
matter of considerable importance. It must be sufficient to aflford resistance
without straining or impairing the strength of the fibre. "The degree of
twist given to ropes is generally such that the rope is from three-fourths
to two-thirds the length of the yarn composing it, and the lighter the
twist, the greater in proportion is the strength of the rope. In a bundle
of fibres, equal in length and strength, fastened at the ends, each fibre
will, upon a strain being applied to the bundle, bear its proper share of
the stress; and the strength of the bundle will evidently be measured by
adding together the strength of the separate fibres. But if this bundle is
twisted so as to form a thread, the strain will no longer be equally dis-
tributed among the fibres, for, by the torsion, the external fibres of the
bundle will be wound round those that lie nearest to the centre, and in
proportion to their distance from the heart of the bundle and the amount
of the twist given, will form spirals more or less inclined from the axis
of the thread. The external fibres will in consequence be longer than the
internal ones, and the greatest .share of the strain will be borne by the
latter. The depreciation in strength from twisting of hard woody fibres
is greater than is the case with fine, soft, flexible fibres, such as common
hemp of good quality."
To obtain the best quality of rope it is necessary to select threads
of the same thickness, strength, expansion and equal twist. The fibres of
hemp being ordinarily only about three and one-half feet in length, and
those of manila from nine to twelve feet, these fibres are necessarily
overlapped among themselves and compressed together so as not to be
drawn apart. This is effected by twisting, the fibres being continuously
drawn out together from a bundle, in the right quantity to produce the
required size of yarn; the yarns are then put together to form strands
of the required thickness, three strands being twisted or "laid" together
to form a "hawser-laid" rope, and three such hawsers forming a cable.
Four strands laid around a central strand or core form a "shroud-laid"
rope, the twist in each successive operation being in a different direction
to that in the one preceding it, so as to preserve as largely as possible
the parallelism of the fibres. Thus "the prepared fibre is twisted or spun to
202 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
the right hand to form yarn ; the required number of yarns receive a
left-hand twist to make a strand : tliree strands twisted to the right make
a hawser, and three hawsers twisted to the left, a cable.
Nov/ in all the large modern rope manufactories, machinery ac-
complishes the various operations more expeditiously and perfectly than
was possible in the old rope-walks, and since machine spinning allows
the whole length of the fibre to be extended at full length, and the full
strength of the material to be obtained, ropes made by machinery are
found to be twenty-four to thirty per cent stronger than those made by
hand, this being due to the sujierior evenness which ensures an increase
of tensile strength and pliability. The weight and strength of rope varies
according to the quality of the hemp of which it is composed. The size of
rope is designated by its circumference and the length by fathoms.
The operation of rope-making in the ancient rope-walks was as follows :
"The hemp being first hackled or combed, the spinner fastened a bundle
or 'strike' of hemp around his waist, with the bight or double in front
and the ends passing each other at his back ; a number of fibres were
attached to the hooks of a whirl ; the spinner then walked backward down
the rope-walk, paying out the hemp from the skein with one hand, and sup-
porting the spinning yarn with the other hand, covered with a piece of wetted
cloth. When the end of the walk was reached, or the yarn was sufficienfly
long, the end of the yarn was taken off the hook on the whirl and was
wound on a reel. The next process is warping the yarns or stretching
them to a given length in order . that they may, when formed into a
strand, bear the strain equally. It is at this stage that the yarn is tarred
by hauling it in skeins through a tar kettle.
"In the next operation, which was technically termed 'laying,' two or
more yarns were attached to hooks on a whirl, so that when turned the
yarns were twisted the contrary way to the twist given them in the spin-
ning. Thus were the strands made, and to make a rope three of them were
affixed to three hooks at one end, each strand on a different hook, and all
three strands were affixed to one hook at the other end; the single hook
twisting one way and the three others the reverse way."
Such was the state of the industry when in 1642 a rope-walk was set up
in Boston, only twelve years after the town was founded, when it was in
truth "rather a village than a town, consisting of no more than twenty
or thirty houses." Before that nearly every kind of rigging and tackle
for vessels had been brought from England.
It is probable that the building of the first ship in Boston, a vessel
of 160 tons, called the "Trial," inspired our forefathers with the idea of
fitting the new craft with rigging made in the land of her birth; at any
rate, at that juncture it was that one John Harrison, a ropemaker of
Salisbury, England, was invited to come to Boston "on motion of some
gentlemen of this town." He responded to these overtures and set up his
OF THE UNITED STATES 203
rope-walk on land pertaining to his dwelling on Purchase Street, at the
foot of Summer Street. The "walk" was ten feet, ten inches wide.
Posts were set up, to which the ropes and cords were suspended, and in
the open air the work was carried on. Harrison enjoyed a monopoly of this
business up to 1663, when permission was granted John Heyman to "set
up his posts," but with liberty only to make fishing lines ; even this license
being revoked when it was found that it impaired Harrison's means of
making a livelihood for the eleven persons dependent upon him. Hemp also
was hard to be procured, which was another reason for circumscribing
its manufacture. After Harrison's death, rope-walks increased in number,
and for sixty years there were in the Nortli and West ends some fourteen
of them, so that in 1793 the industry was thriving, this being partially due,
no doubt, to the fostering bounty of the General Court. It is recorded
that in 1794 "over fifty men were employed (in Boston) in this work
alone;" but, in that same year, seven of the rope-walks were destroyed in
a great fire, and the selectmen decreed that no more should be built in
the heart of the town. The work in these ancient rope-walks was mostly
done by hand, in some cases supplemented by horse or water power; rope-
makers were legally apprenticed, and there was, as in all the manufactur-
ing trades, great opposition to the introduction of even the simplest
machinery.
But it must not be thought that Boston or even Massachusetts held
a monopoly of this primitive industry. Rope-walks there were at Nan-
tucket, three of them; there was one at Newburyport, one at Castine, Me.,
while a large establishment was founded at Portland, Me., by Samuel
Pearson. His two sons, Samuel, Jr., and George C., learned the business
with their father and afterwards founded the Suffolk Cordage Company,
which later became the Pearson Cordage Company, one of the largest
factories in the country. This Samuel was the author of many inventions
in rope machines and in regulators for spinning. After his death, his son,
Charles H. Pearson, who had been identified with his father's business,
became connected with the Boston Cordage Company, and still later with
the Standard Cordage Company, now insolvent. In 1810 there were 173
rope-walks in the United States, and these were scattered all over the
country.
In 1820 Bourne .Spooner, with Caleb Loring and others, brought about
the incorporation of the Plymouth Cordage Company, at Plymouth, A'lass. ;
but it was not until 1832 or 1834 that machines for rope-making were in-
troduced into Massachusetts, and it was then called "patent cordage" to
distinguish it from the hand-made product. At first the machines were
run by water power, but in 1837 the first steam engine was put into the
Plymouth Cordage Company's mills, and steam was doubtless made use
of by other companies about the same time. In California the industry was
established by Mr. A. L. Tubbs, who bought most of the machinery in
204 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
one of the old Boston mills and shipped it to the Pacific Coast, and later con-
trolled the two or three factories located there.
But these comparatively modern firms, though springing from the
ancient rope-walks, as time passed and the industry progressed, were
doubtless early equipped with all that was best and latest in improved
methods and machinery, some account of which must be noted here.
Rope-making, as it was known to our immediate ancestors, had been
going on for centuries with little or no change up to that period, when
Dr. Edmund Cartwright invented his "cordelier" in 1792.
The "Cordelier" was improved and brought to a practical condition
by Captain Huddart in 1805, and to him is ascribed the honor of many
devices to further aid in the manufacture of ropes and twines ; but though
many improved machines have been produced in both America and Europe,
the fundamental principles were embodied in Cartwright's invention. By
1820 rope-making machinery was in practical operation in England, though
hand rope still continues to be made. Even now, though making rope by
hand is almost a lost art, there are two rope-walks in the United States
where it is still practised. One of these is at the Navy Yard, Charles-
town, Mass., which is the only rope-walk owned by the United States
Government. The products made there are used principally for serving
wire rope, rigging and other ropes needing protection, and are all tarred.
The serving cords are, mainly, marline, houseline, hambroline, round line
and two and three yarn-spun yarns. The manner and process of manu-
facture differ in no wise from that we have described as being practised
in the old rope-walks. At the Charlestown rope-walks three kinds of
hemp are used, Russian, Manila and Kentucky.
It is forty years or more since hand rope-making was at its zenith
in the United States. One man can now do the work it formerly em-
ployed eight men to perform ; that is, one man can attend to eight ma-
chines, each doing the work of one man. A complete set of rope and
twine-making machinery in a modern rope factory consists of a heckling
or combing machine, spreading and drawing frames for line yarns, and
carding engines and drawing frames for tow. These machines are very
similar to those in use in flax manufacture, the heavier yarns for rope-
making being spun upon a gill spinning frame, such as the automatic
spinner invented by John Goode, of New York City, which embodies a
self-feeding motion, so that when the amount of material presented to
the machine lessens, the speed declines, and when it fails, the machine
stops. Goode also contributed several other important and effective ma-
chines to the rope-making industry.
The compound rope machine of Glover & Guiltimans practically gives
three machines in one, and constructs three-strand ropes up to three and
one-half inches. "The yarns being wound round on the bobbins in
suitable numbers, according to the size of the rope to be made, they are
OF THE UNITED STATES 205
from each bobbin threaded through a head runner — register plate of six
holes — and gathered at a die, at which they are enclosed into strands, there
being a separate die for each of the three strands. The strands being
formed, they are then threaded through a manhead receiver of three holes,
and immediately closed at the main closing die into finished rope, the
finished rope being drawn through the die by means of strong hauling-
ofTdrums, and ultimately wound on a storage creel."
In 1878, after the invention of the self-binding harvester, the large
mills were established. Sewell, Day & Company, who had been in business
since 1835, built one in Boston, as did the Pearson Cordage Company and
J. Nickerson & Company; other large factories were those of Weaver,
Fitler & Company, which later became Edwin H. Fitler & Company, of
Philadelphia ; Plymouth Cordage Company, Plymouth, Mass. ; Hingham
Cordage Company, of Hingham, Mass. ; New Bedford Cordage Company,
of New Bedford, Mass. (this company dated from 1842) ; Baumgardner,
Woodward & Company, of Philadelphia; J. T. Donnell & Company, of
Bath, Me. ; William Wall & Sons, of New York City ; Lawrence \\'ater-
bury & Company, Tucker, Carter & Company, Elizabethport Steam Cordage
Company, all of New York; Thomas Jackson & Son, of Easton, Pa.; J.
Rinekes Sons, of Easton, Pa. ; and John Bonte's Sons, of Cincinnati.
These firms were situated mainly at the Atlantic seaports, but several
circumstances, namely, the decline of American shipping, the invention
of wire rope for standing rigging, and the invention of the self-binding
reaper, with the consequent demand for binder twine, brought about a
change in the cordage business, and factories rapidly multiplied in the West
and other agricultural centres of the United States, Akron, Peoria, Manis-
burg and Xenia taking a very important part in the business. There are
now cordage manufactories all over the country, Massachusetts and New
York leading the States in amount of capital employed in this industry.
The various materials from which rope is made stand in the order
of their importance as follows: Hemp, which is the product of a plant
known botanically as canabis sativa. It is an annual native to Asia and
cultivated in Europe from the earliest historic times as a coarse fibre, fit
only to make ropes and twine, but for its finer uses was not known in
Europe until comparatively recent times. History cites as a curiosity
two chemises made of hemp which belonged to Catherine de Medicis.
The fibres of hemp, tough, durable and elastic, are admirably suited for
making cordage and canvas for shipping, and large amounts of it are
so employed. It is cultivated for this purpose in almost all the countries
of Europe, Poland and European Russia being the chief exporting coun-
tries ; French, English and Irish hemp are much esteemed in the marke*:.
but the quantity grown in those countries is inconsiderable. Italian hemp
is better known, of which there is a very fine quality known in commerce
as "Italian Garden Hemp," the fibre of which is eight or nine feet long.
2o6 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
In Great Britain, the supply of hemp for the great amount of cordage
there manufactured was largely obtained from Russia until the time of tTie
Russian War, when the consequent scarcity and the great increase in the
price of Russian hemp caused the manufacturers to turn their attention
elsewhere, which resulted in the substitution of better and cheaper fibres
for the purpose.
Sunn hemp is the product of a leguminous plant native to India, the
crotalaria juncea, and is not true hemp (cannabis sativa). Its fibre, of
which millions of pounds are shipped annually, is the "brown hemp" of
commerce, and is known as Madras or Bombay hemp, according to the port
from whence it is shipped. The Bombay hemp is unskilfully prepared and
is much inferior in wearing properties to that of Madras or Bengal, and
it is therefore in less demand for shipping purposes.
American or Kentucky hemp is a true bast fibre, the product of a
species of the cannabis sativa. Kentucky hemp is coarser and darker than
Russian or European hemp, and is used chiefly for making various tarred
goods such as ratline, marline, houseline, etc. The plants are cut and
spread out to dry and carefully stacked. Later on the stacks are opened
and the hemp is retted or rotted by the action of the dew and the sun.
This rots the gum which causes the filaments to adhere, and causes the
dry, woody part of the stem to fall away during the process of breaking
which follows. The fibre is then hackled to clean it from fragments ol
wood, broken fibre and dirt, and is pressed into bales. Hemp was formerl)'
a very important product in Kentucky, but of late years the industry has
declined. Manila, confusingly termed "hemp,'' is the fibre of the musa
textilis, or wild plantain, which has long been used in South America by the
Indians and natives for the manufacture of rope and cloth. The celebrated
circumnavigator, Dampier, thus records the process of its preparation in the
Indian Archipelago over a century and a half ago: "They take the body of
the tree, clean it of its outward^ bark and leaves, cut it into four quarters,
which, put into the sun, the moisture exhales ; they then take hold of the
threads at the ends and draw them out; they are as big as brown thread;
of this they make cloth."
In the Philippines, both the plantain and the prepared fibres are called
by the name given to them by the Spanish, "Abaca." The plants are prop-
agated from shoots and matured in two or three years, when they are
tree-like in shape, and fifteen to twenty feet high, the stalk or body of the
plant being composed of the separate leaf stems or "folds" growing in over-
lapping layers. The fibre is obtained from the bark of these folds, that of
the innermost stems being superior in quality and color to that of th?
outer ones.
The fibrous strips are then freed from the pulp by means of a knife
hinged over a block of wood. Should a smooth-edged knife be used, with
a due amount of pressure, a smooth, strong fibre is obtained ; this operation,
OF THE UNITED STATES 207
however, requires more tenacity of purpose and application than ordinarily
pertains to the native workman, who too often uses a rough-edged knife
and handles his material slackly, the result being a large amount of inferior
fibre, which causes much trouble to the manufacturer of rope. The fibre,
after being scraped, is hung up to dry-, when it is tied up in bundles or
hanks and carted to market. In the exporter's warehouse, it is sorted and
graded into bales weighing 275 pounds, and thus it eventually reaches the
cordage factory.
There is great differentiation in the quality of Manila, owing to the
fact that there are more than a dozen difi"erent varieties of the musa
textilis, and, as we have seen, the material is often injured by lack of care
in its preparation. Manila having steadily increased in price of late
years, much adulteration with other fibres and with inferior Manila has
been practised in order to cheapen the production of rope. However,
good Manila rope is greatly superior in strength to that manufactured
from Russian hemp; the best comes from latitudes south of Manila and
from several islands as far as the tenth degree. The plan now adopted
in manufacturing rope from Manila hemp may be briefly described: "The
first floor of the factory is occupied with the dressing machines, three of
which are cylinders of wood covered with points of iron, two inches in
length, distant from each other about one and one-half inch. These first
open the fibre, which then passes to another machine, under a cylinder
of much larger diameter, of which the points (cards) are smaller and
placed together. By this the fibre is separated into a finer thread, and
divested of the woody or refuse particles.
"After this preparation, the hemp passes between two iron cylinders,
wjiich compress it very strongly. From thence it is conducted to a smaller
machine, which gives the first twist, and winds it on a bobbin of about
six inches in diameter. The dimensions of the cord are increased or
diminished by means of an iron screw, which adjusts the diameter to the
hole through which the fibres pass to the required size.
"The demand for Manila rope is ever on the increase, and immense
quantities of Manila hemp are constantly shipped from Manila to Europ)e
and America. The cultivation of the plantain from which it is obtained
has been largely increased of late y^ars in the Philippines and also in the
northern part of Celebes and in the Island of Leyti. The greater part
of the Manila grown in the Philippine Islands is used by the United States,
though a considerable portion goes to Great Britain."
Next in importance to Manila is the sisal hemp of commerce, the fibre
of the Agava rigida, variety sisilana and variety longi folia. The common
names applied to sisal hemp are henequen or jenequen, sosquil, cabulla or
cabuya, the latter being the Central American names. The agave is a cactus-
like plant and is cultivated, to a very considerable extent, in Mexico, par-
ticularly in Yucatan, the sacci or white agave being the kind principally
2o8 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
grown in that locality where the development of the henequen industry
has given rise to great prosperity and progress and has brought about the
construction of several railways, notably that which runs from Murida to
the port of Progress. This was the first line, but it soon proved inadequate
to the demands made upon it in the freightage of the henequen prepared
for export, and a second line was built, and these two lines are reported to
be, for their mileage and capacity, the most profitable freight railways in
the world. When the hemp is taken off the cars at Progress, which has be-
come quite an important seaport, it is shipped on to steamers of the Ward
line, which, twice a week, leave there laden with henequen or sisal for Cuba
and New York, almost the total exportation of sisal being through Progress.
Agave sisilana has been introduced into Jamaica, where it can be suc-
cessfully grown. By the native Mexicans the fibre of this plant has been
used for many centuries for the purposes of manufacturing cordage, mats
and cloth ; but the demand for binder twine and the employment of Ameri-
can capital has made the cultivation and preparation of sisal a very important
industry. Labor-saving machinery in place of hand labor and the rude primi-
tive methods of the natives have brought the business up to date, and many
sisal cultivators have made large fortunes within the present generation.
In propagating the fibre-yielding agaves, the suckers are set out in rows,
the weeds being cleared out from the field and the plants tended once or
twice a year. In the fifth year some of the leaves ripen and are ready to
cut ; then the natives go through the fields and cull these leaves, which are
the outer ones, free them from their thorny edges and tie them up into
bundles of fifty, and by means of trains, drawn on portable tracks by oxen,
convey them to the cleaning mill. The plant continues to afford a supply
of leaves for a period of from ten to twenty years, when the plant flowers
and dies. (See Plate 12.)
The length of the fibre is only about two to four feet ; in color it
is a yellowish white with sometimes a slight tinge of green. It is harsher
and less flexible than Manila and apt to show "splints" in the rope.
In former times the fibre was extracted by the simple and primitive
maimer of beating the leaf on a block with a club or mallet, and afterwards
scraping it on a bench or a smooth log or pole with one end on the ground
and the other breast high. They employed a narrow piece of board with
a triangular notch in the end, which was brought to an edge, and held nearly
perpendicular when used. The leaf was laid on the pole, held with one
hand and scraped with the other. In order to get rid of the gum more
readily, the beaten leaves were generally soaked either in water or in mud
till they fermented ; but from the nature of the gum, even a barely appre-
ciable amount of fermentation stained and weakened the fibres, though the
steeping materially facilitated the cleansing of them ; indeed, the diflference
between the two methods then in vogue, that of allowing the leaves to
ferment and that of at once beating and scraping the fibre from the leaves
OF THE UNITED STATES 209
when fresh, was such as to render the fibre obtained in the latter way foui'
times more valuable than the fibre treated by fermentation. The opera-
tion is now efi^ected by machinery. The sisal is carried from the fields
to the cleaner-house, where the pulp is cleaned from the fibre, the bundles
of leaves being taken up on an elevator and passed along a carrier, which
feeds them into the machine where they are held in place by a grip-
chain, while wheels formed for that purpose scrape the fibre from them ;
as it passes out of the machine it is hung up to dry in the sun, and, this
being thoroughly accomplished, the fibre is taken to the press and made
into bales weighing about 350 pounds each. It is chiefly used in the
United States for binder twine, lath twine and tying cords for all kinds
of purposes, such as bundling laths, shingles, lumber, kindling wood, leather
hides, cooperage stock, nursery stock-tying, grain sacks, and bales of tex-
tile goods, and for further almost innumerable purposes. It is occasionally
used for the purpose of admixture with hemp for the manufacture of
second-rate Manila rope when its presence can almost always be detected
by the appearance of rough fragments or splints ; nor is the rope thus
adulterated by any means as strong as that made from pure manila. When
the fibres or filaments are obtained from the outer leaves of the plant
they are very strong and coarse and well adapted for cables, cordage, ropes,
canvas, sacking, the warps of carpets and for every description of this
class of manufactt:res where strength is the main desideratum ; it is also
more durable than hemp, and ropes made from it are lighter and more
pliable than hempen rope and do not require tarring, an operation which
greatly weakens hempen rope. It also bears the alternations of dryness
and moisture with little injury; the diflference in hygrometric is considerably
in favor of the agave ropes. "Cables made from this material," says P. L.
Simmonds, F. R. C. I., a British authority on the subject, "are acknowledged
by the Admiralty Board to be much superior to those made from hemp."
All the species of agave yield a white but somewhat brittle fibre
possessing useful qualities. Ropes are made in the Canary Islands from
agave fibre. That of agave A.mericanus is mentioned by Humboldt, the
great traveller, who tells of its strength by describing a bridge where
the distance of 838 feet was spanned by ropes made of the fibre of this
plant, which actually formed the groundwork of the roadway of the bridge.
Pita is the fibre of the Brometia silvestris, which abounds wild in the
state of Oaxaca. It somewhat resembles ramie, which we will describe
later; it is, when made into rope, one-sixth lighter than that made from
hemp, and is therefore greatly esteemed for the rigging of vessels, since
it causes a sensible reduction in the top weight, and effects a saving in the
first cost. It has a second merit — that of contracting less than hemp.
From comparative trials made at the French dockyard, at Toulon, we again
quote Mr. Simonds: "On ropes made from this fibre and from hemp,
210 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
the following results were obtained, both being immersed in the sea for
six months and exposed to the atmosphere for the same time:"
Pita. Weight Hemp. Weight
supported, lbs. supported, lbs.
Plunged in sea 3,-^10 Plunged in sea 2,538
Exposed to air 3,724 Exposed to air 3,022
Plunged in sea. i,935 Plunged in sea 617
9,479 6,167
Alonsieur Chevremont, a noted Belgian engineer, who had closely
studied the subject, thus wrote: "Ropes made from the pita possess a
greater average strength by four times than those made from hemp of the
same diameter and manufactured by the same process. By the operation
of tarring, ropes of hemp lose nearly a quarter of their strength, while
rope'^ made from the pita, from their nature are exempt from this operation
(their natural gum acting in lieu of tar) and their smooth surface protects
them from wear by friction ; they are employed with the greatest success
to communicate rotative motion by means of pulleys, and last, for this
purpose, ten times longer than hempen ropes of the same diameter. They
have much less rigidity or stifrness, and it is well known that this stififness
in ropes employed for machinery offers a resistance which must be over-
come, and therefore acts disadva'ntageously as a loss of power."
Compared with ropes of hemp, the specific gravity of pita is as nine
to fifteen. It is therefore easily seen that the ropes must also be lighter
than hempen ropes, which makes pita rope particularly desirable for use
in collieries and for other mining purposes.
Up to the present time there is no machine in e.xistence adapted to the
preparation of this fibre, and the Mexican Indians obtain it by the most
primitive methods. Pita begins to produce the second year after its
planting. The leaves are longer than those of sisal, and as the yield is two
pounds of fibre from twenty leaves, each six feet long, and there are two
or three cuttings a year, each plant produces a large quantity per annum.
Aloe fibre is largely cultivated in Russia, whence it is exported to
France principally, where it is used for making hats, cordage, paper mat-
tings, etc. The process of manufacture is simple and inexpensive, the
machinery being solely an engine of four horse-power, which revolves a
pair of cylinders on a system of stampers or beaters, while near at hand
are the metal or stone receptacles, which are used for soaking or washing.
The leaves which are cut green are passed through the machine and crushed
without destruction of the fibre; they are then left to soak for six or eight
hours; at the end of that time the leaves are disintegrated. Thirty leaves
OF THE UNITED STATES 211
of aloe, six feet long each, yield on an average two pounds of fibre. This
is packed at St. Denis in hanks and pressed in sacks.
Mexican grass or ixtle or istle is the fibre of the maguey manso and
maguey mexic, and is largely in demand as a substitute for bristles in
cheap nail and other brushes; it is also used by Americans and Germans in
the making of cordage and bagging. It also comes into requisition as an
adulterant of sisal. It is extensively used in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec
and the higher lands of Mexico.
Ramie, the fibre of Bcehmeria, a genus of the natural order Urtica
or nettle family. The Urtica nivea is the species most used ; it is a shrubby
plant similar to the common nettle, the bast, or inner layer of the bark,
containing the fibre. It grows naturally and is cultivated in China under
the name of Schon Ma, and has been used extensively in that country
for many centuries for the manufacture of ropes, twine, nets, sewing
thread and cloths. It also grows naturally and is cultivated in Sumatra,
Java, Siam, Burmah, Assam, the Sunda Islands, Lahore and other parts
of the East Indies ; it was formerly wholly exported from China under the
name of Rheaa grass, but it is now. grown in Algeria, Egypt, Cape Colony,
and in Louisiana, U. S., where it is known by the name given it by the
Malays — ramie ; also in Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil, the Sand-
wich Islands, the West Indies and in the Transcaucasia, but cannot be
successfully grown in Europe since it requires a warmer climate.
The strength of this fibre is quite extraordinary, being about double
that of hemp, which brings it into prominence as a desirable material for
the manufacture of ropes, cables, twines and thread for which in China
it has long been the common material. A few years ago the war department
of France introduced this fibre for the manufacture of cables for war
balloons and for the making of gunpowder sacks.
Jute is the fibre of the Corchorus capsularis and C. olitorius ; it is
largely cultivated in Bombay and is used in the cordage industry, but
chiefly for bagging and baling. Another Indian fibre, the moorgha or
marool (Sanseveira zeylanica), is remarkable for its pure white color;
a line four feet long made of this fibre bore a weight of 120 pounds, when
a cord, the same size, of Russian hemp broke at 105 pounds. The former,
after 116 days' maceration, bore a weight of thirty pounds, when the hempen
rope was completely rotten. Large quantities of the fibrous bark of the
lime tree are used in Russia for cordage and mat-making purposes, there
being very extensive forests of the tree in that country.
Most of the tropical countries abound with valuable textile plants,
some of which are at present looked upon as troublesome wteeds. Some of
these are ligneous plants and will produce annually -two crops of shoots
and require no machinery in the preparation of the fibre for the market.
Many plants of the Hisbiscus family yield useful fibre ; the natives
of Australia manufacture durable twine for their nets, etc., from two
212 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
species of this plant. H, hetorophylliis is one of the straight-growing
shrubs, with strong, fibrous bark, that bear the name of "cordage trees"
in Tasmania. The inhabitants of Tahiti manufacture clothes, ropes and
matting from the bark of H. lilaceous. Mahobark Hisbiscus elatus fur-
nishes a very strong but coarse fibre, largely used by the natives of Demerara.
In India also many of the malvaceous plants are largely cultivated
for their fibres, which are highly esteemed for manufacturing purposes.
Hisbiscus cannabis, which abounds in Coromandel, yields quantities of
strong and tolerably soft fibres which are used as a substitute for hemp.
in the Northwest provinces of India it is generally cultivated for cordage.
Several species of the grass tribe (saccharum) are employed in India
for making ropes used on the rivers Ganges and Indus. Dr. Forbes
Watson makes favorable mention of an Indian grass called "mouvy"
(Saccharun munja) which grows abundantly in the province of Scinde,
where it is used for making ropes for the native boats on the river Indus.
The fibre of this plant is strong and good and is exported to England
from Kurachee.
Eriophorum cannabinum, a cotton grass growing abundantly in all
the ravines of the Himalayas, is plaited into the ropes of which the jhoolas
or rope bridges over the large rivers in India are almost universally made.
By the North American Indians, twine bags, fishing nets and twines
are made from the stalks of Apocynum cannabinum and hypericifolium,
which afiford an excellent substitute for hemp.
The roots of Butea frondosa and superba are made into strong ropes
in India, while Sagueras rumphii affords fibre admirably adapted for cables
and long cordage. In Western Africa the natives make excellent line and
rope from the leaves of the wine and oil palm (Elais guinsensis). It fur-
nishing the whole of their fishing nets and lines. In Cape Colony rope
grass (the various species of Restio) are frequently used for making
cordage.
Phormium tenax, or New Zealand flax, is of a different order to com-
mon flax, which is an exogen, whilst phormium is the product of a lilaceous
plant, and an endogen. There are several varieties which have long been
used by the natives of New Zealand for making rope and mats. It
grows abundantly as a weed in many parts of the colony. It is used as
a substitute for Manila hemp, largely in the manufacture of cordage, and
great attention is paid to its cultivation in all parts of the colony, where
for many years immense quantities have been made into rope, and since
1864 the exportations have been very large and constantly augmenting. It
has been introduced into various parts of Australia and has been success-
fully grown in Ireland, the west coast of Scotland and the Channel
Islands. The rope made from phormium when untarred will last thirty-
four per cent longer than manila, but chafes more freely and is more
susceptible to change of weather. Among the fibrous substances used
OF THE UNITED STATES 213
in the East we mention incidentally split rattan cane (calamus), which is
used for cables, which are extremely strong and durable, and have the
additional quality of being so light as to swim like cork upon the sea.
The plait cordage of the gomuti or ejoo fibre furnishes the entire equipment
of the native shipping, and the large European ships in the East use
cables made of it, which are noticeable for their tenacity and durability.
Coir is one of the most approved materials for cables, owing to its
strength, elasticity and lightness. Salt water affects it very slightly.
Before the introduction of chain cables, most of the vessels navigating
Indian seas were furnished with cables made of this material, which is made
from the fibrous outer covering of the cocoanut. Coir and coir rope are
shipped from India to the extent of over 10,000,000 pounds annually.
Ceylon is the principal place of its preparation, but from Cochin comes
the best quality of yarn, and many thousand hundredweight are annually
shipped from there.
Among modern nations cotton was first employed for making rope
in the United States, though it must have long been used in India for
cordage purposes. In this country it is made into rope for rigging, tow
lines, cords, twines, fishing nets, lines, etc. The cotton chiefly used is
long staple Macon-Georgia, and it is made on special machines. Cotton
has many advantageous properties when considered in the light of a
cordage material, being capable of a tighter twist and less susceptible to
friction than is hempen rope, also it is more pliable and runs more freely
through the blocks, the fibres being laid together more compactly and
with greater tension.
Esparto cordage is made in Spain and largely exported to France,
Italy, Holland, Portugal, the United States and England, and the Spanish
marine and mining industries use an immense amount of cordage made
with esparto, which costs about fifty to sixty dollars a ton.
Hide ropes are still made to some extent, the operation being pretty
much the same as that shown on Egyptian tablets dating back many
thousands of years, the strips cut from the hide being plaited together,
according to the size of the rope required. The rope is then submitted
to the action of a solution which has the effect of rendering the animal
substance soft and pliable and at the same time preserving it. These ropes
form a good substitute for a chain, and are used for hoisting purposes in
warehouses and mines. Sailors prefer hide for tiller ropes because it does
not rattle and is not apt to break so suddenly as a chain. It is also
preferable to hemp or Manila rope because it is unaffected by humidity
or extreme dryness ; it is also less cumbersome and lighter, its tenacity
being tenfold greater.
At a time when, owing to complications with Russia and a failure
of the hemp crop, the British admiralty was paying four hundred dollars
a ton for hemp, Mr. G. W. Binks, a foreman ropemaker in the Woolwich
214 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Dockyard, invented wire ropes and cordage. Mr. Binks, who had been
in the employ of the government for thirty years, under its direction made
innumerable experiments with various cordage ; nothing, however, seemed
to possess the many excellent qualities of hemp. In his leisure moments
at home he conceived the idea of twisting together fine wires to form a
rope, of which he made a specimen and submitted it to the admiralty
officials, who gave it no approval. Step by step against many adverse cir-
cumstances, the undaunted inventor worked his way to success, and iron
wire ropes, first conceived and used for the standing rigging of ships, are
now put to innumerable uses — ships' standing and running rigging; sub-
marine telegraph cables, suspension bridges, guide incline, and flat ropes
for mining purposes, special forms of rope for engineering, pneumatic
telegraphs, traction ropes for tramways, steel plough ropes, coulippe ropes
for transport of sugar canes, etc., tent stay ropes, ropes for hoisting
purposes, tow ropes, endless driving bands, bullock traces, telegraph run-
ning and stray strand, fencing strand, scaffold ropes, clock lines, clothes
lines, sash lines, lightning conductors, gilt and silvered cords for hanging
pictures, and many other applications might be enumerated. These ropes
are made with hempen cores or without, and a scientist writing of them
says : "Many considerable steps in modern progress, such as submarine
cables, suspension bridges, etc., could not have been effected without the
aid of this principle." The methods and machines used in manufacturing
this rope are largely similar to those employed in twisting fibres into
rope. This invention resulted in a decrease in the cordage industry when
it was adopted for the standing rigging of ships, a decrease which happily
was more than oflFset by a new demand for binder twine for use in self-
binding reapers, invented about that time.
We now come to the statistics of the cordage and twine industries
of the United States, and we find that in 1880 there were 165 establishments,
with an aggregate capitalization of i?7, 140,475, with products valued at
$12,494,171 ; in 1890 the number of establishments had decreased to 150,
with a capitalization of $23,351,883; value of products, $33,312,559. In
1900 there was a further decrease of the number of establishments, due no
doubt, as was the decrease during the previous decade, to the merging of
several concerns into large corporations; thus in 1900 there were 105
establishments manufacturing cordage, with an aggregate capital of
$29,275,470; the product of the manufacture as a whole amounting to
$37,849,651. During the period from 1900 to 1905, the progress of the
industry was greater than at any previous time in its history. Capital in-
creased in round numbers 27 per cent; number of wage-earners, 11 per
cent ; wages paid, 30 per cent ; cost of materials, 35 per cent, and value of
products, 35 per cent; so that in 1905 there were 102 establishments with
an aggregate capital of $48,017,139.
In 1900 the product of binder twine was 165,609,429 pounds; the
OF THE UNITED STATES
215
product of rope 137,516,204 pounds. While in 1905 the binder twine
manufactured amounted to 191,796,047 pounds and the rope to 200,824,-
974 pounds.
It is interesting to note that, in 1824, the Senate of the United States
passed a resolution inquiring as to the quantity of cordage manufactured
from hemp of domestic growth that had been used in the American Navy
since the War of 1812, and elicited the information that only 182 tons
of Kentucky yarns, and cordage manufactured from Kentucky hempen
yarns, were contracted for and delivered in 1813 and 1814; namely, "one
hundred tons of cordage contracted for by Matthew L. Davis to be manu-
factured from Kentucky hempen yarns and delivered in New York in 1813;
fifty tons of Kentucky yarns contracted for by Richard Pindell and H.
Clay, delivered at Baltimore in 1814; thirty-one tons, seventeen hundred-
weight, twenty-seven pounds of Kentucky yarns contracted for and de-
livered at New Orleans in 1813 by W. Garret."
It was found that the discrimination against American hemp was due
to the practice of dew-rotting the hemp instead of water-rotting.
2i6 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
TEXTILE MACHINERY
BY GEORGE O. DRAPER
A history of the development and manufacture of textile machinery in
this country would require several volumes to do it full justice. Any
brief sketch must properly be limited to the earlier and later history, since
those whose plants have not continued active usually had but little effect on
the general evolution of the industry. The earlier manufacture of textiles
in this country was carried on with hand cards, spinning-wheels, jennies
and hand looms, the earlier ideas all being imported from England. Richard
Anthony (of Rhode Island) and Daniel Jackson appear to be the first
textile machinery manufacturers on record, as they made a spinning
jenny in 1787 containing thirty-two spindles, Moses Brown, an efficient
financier, of Providence, R. I., becoming interested in an attempt to run
the same by water power. Early attempts were made to introduce models
of important inventions from abroad, but the English laws were very
strict, it being their intent to prevent other countries from profiting by dis-
closure of their new processes. Tench Coxe, who held government posi-
tions under Washington and Jefferson, attempted to get a full set of models
of the Arkwright inventions. They were seized before shipment. Coxe
then offered a reward in Philadelphia papers for the introduction of the
improved machines, and it was through a notice of this advertisement in
an English journal that Samuel Slater was prompted to immigrate. The
Hon. Hugh Orr, of Bridgewater, Mass., had meanwhile induced Alexander
and Robert Barr, of Scotland, to come to this country and reproduce
the English inventions, the Massachusetts legislature in 1786 granting the
sum of two hundred pounds to assist them in completing the machinery ; but
their efforts were futile.
The first cotton factory of record in this country was started in
Beverly, Mass., in the fall of 1787. Moses Brown was also interested
in this project. Samuel Slater, financially assisted by the firm of Almy
& Brown, began the manufacture of the approved English machinery in
1789, and laid the real foundation for the cotton spinning industry of
the United States. The word "spinning" is used advisedly, for it was not
until Francis C. Lowell developed a successful copy of the English power
loom that the weaving industry of this country was fairly started. In
1816 it was said that there was hardly a cotton spindle running in the
OF THE UNITED STATES 317
United States, since overproduction of the spinning macliinery had glutted
the market, the hand looms being unable to take care of the product.
The W'hitney cotton-gin was the first important textile invention
credited to an American. Eli Whitney's patent was taken out in 1794;
but there is some dispute as to whether the machine shown in patent of
Hodgen Holmes in 1796 does not better disclose devices which have been
successfully developed for commercial practice. It is interesting to note
that other Southerners were active in machinery lines, the cotton mill of
Michael Schenck, built at Lincoln, N. C, in 1813, being completely equipped
with machinery all made at Lincolnton. It is shown by records that this
shop made picking, carding, roving and spinning machinery. In 1813
Francis C. Lowell, who had examined power looms in England, started,
with Patrick T. Jackson, to develop a practical weaving loom. They were
assisted by Paul Moody, a most efficient mechanic, who later made im-
portant modifications in other textile machinery. The English double
speeder was introduced in this country through the efforts of William
Mowry, who secured access to an English mill, accompanied by a clever
mechanic named Wilde. English displeasure was manifested by an in-
fernal machine shipped to this country, addressed to "the person who first
introduced the double speeder in America." The package slipped from a
crane on the wharf, exploding without injury to anyone.
The American citizens who started this great industry in this country
were undoubtedly urged by patriotic motives ; yet the ethics of their
associates are somewhat open to question. There is no doubt but that
we, as a nation, profited against their will from the inventions of men
who wished to keep their ideas for use by their own countrymen, and had
there been sufficient and proper patent protection in both countries, they
could undoubtedly have done so. Those of us who realize the helplessness
of inventors or introducers when unassisted by capital, can safely credit
Moses Brown with being the true father of cotton manufacture in this
country, and make no great mistake in giving second place to Francis C.
Lowell. The cotton industry depended on the preliminary development of
the manufacture of the machinery in which they were vital factors. It
is interesting to note that the descendants of both Brown and Lowell are
still largely interested in many branches of the textile industry.
There is little of record regarding the machine shops in which the
earlier cotton machinery was made, because the machinery was usually
constructed by the corporations owning the cotton mills, either in the
basements of the mills or in buildings adjoining. In 1816 a Scotch me-
chanic, William Gilmour, brought to this country patterns of the most
recent loom construction. These patterns had been shipped here by way
of France in small fractional pieces, as small metal ware, requiring much
of patience and perseverance to rearrange the parts in proper sequence.
Looms were constructed under Gilmour's supervision and operated at
2i8 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Lymansville in 1817. The manufacture was continued by David \Vilkinson,
who had also forged the iron work and turned the spindles and rolls
for Slater's first machines. The firm of Pitcher & Guy continued the
manufacture of Gilmour's looms, together with cards, mules and other
machinery. It is interesting to note that many of these earlier manu-
facturers were ancestors of those now most prominent in the textile
machinery line. Joseph Brown and Otis Pettee took out a patent on a
speeder in 1813. Ira Draper patented his first temple in 1816. Thomas J.
Hill was associated with Samuel Slater himself in establishing the Providence
Machine Company, still active in the trade. The Jenks family, of Paw-
tucket, have been associated with the manufacture of cotton machinery
since its earliest introduction, Stephen Jenks manufacturing muskets in
1775 and forging mule spindles in the same shop as soon as they were
in demand. Paul Whitin purchased an interest in a shop on the Mumford
River in 1794, though the actual production of cotton machinery did not
begin there till about 1830. William Mason built power looms as early
as 1829. In 1833 li^ brought out his fir.st spinning frame, and in 1842
his self-acting mule. The present plant of the IMason Machine Works was
started in 1845. The Franklin Foundry Company were building mules as
early as 1853. William Crompton invented a pattern surface fancy
loom in 1837. The business was continued by M. A. Furbush and George
Crompton, who later divided the business, Furbush moving to Philadelphia.
The Crompton Loom \\'orks later became consolidated with the Knowles
Loom Works, which also has taken in the Stafford Loom Works, the
Gilbert Loom Company, and, more recently, the Crompton-Thayer Com-
pany, thus controlling the greater proportion of the manufacture of fancy
woolen and worsted looms, carpet looms, etc., and also competing strongly
in the plain cotton loom field. The Saco Water Power Company, of Bidde-
ford, Me., now consolidated with the Saco & Pettee Machine Shops, was
organized in 1841. The Pettee Machine Works were founded by Otis
Pettee, and that company has built cotton machinery at Newton Lower
Falls since 1823. The Pettee Machine Works was organized in i88o.
The Amoskeag Machine Shop, of Manchester, built cards as early as
1841. The Lowell IMachine Shop was building cards in 1845. The Draper
industries, though starting with Ira Draper's inventions, were not definitely
located till after the formation of the Hopedale Community in 1842. The
Draper Company in 1897 combined the well-known firm of George Draper
& Sons with the Hopedale Machine Company, the Dulcher Temple Com-
pany and the Hopedale Machine Screw Company, also taking over the
American rights of the Northrop Loom Company and the agency for the
Sawyer Spindle Company. William C. Davol, of Fall River, arranged to
duplicate the Roberts mule in this country and introduced such machinery
as early as 1847. Mr. Davol also invented improvements himself in cards,
spindles and drawing frames. The Kitson Machine Company originated
OF THE UNITED STATES 219
with Richard Kitson at Lowell in 1849. The Howard & Bullough, Ameri-
can Machine Company, started with the formation of an American Com-
pany by English interests in 1894 to reproduce certain lines of English
machinery.
In the woolen and worsted line we have such old-established concerns
as the Davis & Furber Company, of North Andover, and George S.
Harwood & Sons. The Lowell Machine Shop has in recent years taken
up the manufacture of a full line of worsted machinery. The Smith and
Furbush Machine Company, of Philadelphia, make a very full line of
woolen machinery.
In many lines manufacture has been practically consolidated, so that
one concern produces by far the greater proportion of the product. Thus the
bobbin industry is now largely controlled by the United States Bobbin &
Shuttle Co. ; the Emmons Loom Harness Co. controls the largest trade in
harnesses ; the National Ring Traveller Co. the ring-traveller business,
and card clothing is largely controlled by the American Card Clothing Co.
Dyeing, bleaching and finishing machinery are in a field by themselves, being
supplied by such concerns as H. W. Butterworth & Sons Co., of Phila-
delphia; Phenix Iron Works Corporation, of Hartford; Philadelphia Tex-
tile Machinery Co., etc. There are also many concerns who stick to
their own patent specialties, such as the Barber & Colman Co., of Rockford,
111., introducing their most ingenious warp tying-in machine ; the American
Warp Drawing-in Co., operating on an entirely dififerent principle ; the
Stafford Company, of Readville, who introduce an automatic shuttle-chang-
ing loom; the American Moistening Co., who supply humidifying apparatus
for textile mills ; the Dickson Lubricating Saddle Co. ; the Whitinsville
Spinning Ring Co. ; the Easton & Burnham Machine Co., of Pawtucket.
who manufacture spooling machinery and spindles; the Universal Winding
Machinery Co., winding yarn on cones and in conical and cylindrical form by
patent process ; the Foster Machine Co., also making winding machinery ;
the T. C. Entwistle Co., making warpers and card grinders ; the Woonsocket
Machine & Press Co., manufacturing fly frames and wool-spinning ma-
chinery ; the Metallic Drawing-Roll Co., who introduce a substitute for
the leather-covered rolls of preparatory machinery ; the Litchfield Shuttle
Co., of Southbridge, an old-established manufacturing concern ; the D. A.
Tompkins Co., of Charlotte, N. C, the only Southern manufacturer of cotton
machinery, and so on through an almost never-ending list, illustrating the
magnitude of the present industry as a whole.
The subject of textile machinery in this country cannot be properly con-
sidered without reference to the importers, since there are certain distinct
lines which foreign machinery manufacturers control, or in which they com-
pete successfully with American manufacturers. The leading importers are
William Firth & Co., Richards, Atkinson & Haserick, Stephen C. Lowe and
Evan Arthur Leigh.
220 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
In silk machinery, the Atwood-Morrison Company, Stonington, Conn.,
are the largest builders of spinning machinery. Looms are made by manu-
facturers of looms for other purposes.
In considering textiles, it is somewhat difficult to know just where to
limit the industry. As generally considered, it stops when the product leaves
the mill, yet it really includes any manufacture using yarn or cloth for its
finished product. The great clothing industry depends on the sewing ma-
chine, which is a purely American invention. There is a large line of knitting
machinery used in the manufacture of stockings and underwear. Finishing
plants and printing plants require machinery of special manufacture. The
various lines cannot be accurately traced and credited without an amount of
technicality unnecessary in so restricted an article as this must be.
The history of American te.\tile machinery naturally includes that of
many interesting inventions and inventors who were prominent in their
time, but which have been superseded by others more successful, such as
Danforth, with his cap frame, which at one time seemed destined to monop-
olize the cotton-spinning industry, but which is now only used in compara-
tively minor Applications ; Woodward and Wellman, with their card stripper,
which has been practically eliminated, owing to the introduction of a dif-
ferent carding system, etc. There are also many inventors unconnected
with any manufacturing concern, who deserve w:ell of the world's praise,
such as Asa Arnold, who undoubtedly invented the differential motion of
the roving frame ; John Thorpe, who patented the first ring and traveller ;
Erastus B. Bigelow, who filled an entire mill with looms perfected by his
own inventions ; 1 homas Mayor, who put the long bolster on the roving
spindle, and many others deserving of notice, but necessarily overlooked,
since memory and printed record both have their necessary limitations.
Such prominent later inventors as Rabbeth and Northrop will receive full
credit in the chapters devoted to the special divisions of the industry to
which their inventions apply.
It is hardly one hundred years since the earlier American mills were
completely equipped with power-driven textile machinery. While we still
owe foreigners for many fundamental conceptions, and still frankly copy
many of their methods — in fact, actually import their machinery complete
for many purposes — America should be well contented with having given
to the world the cotton saw-gin, the ring- spinning frame, the sewing-machine
and an automatic loom.
The cotton machinery industry has naturally associated itself with the
larger cotton manufacturing centres; thus, in Fall River, the Kilburn &
Lincoln Company build many of the looms in use, the Fall River Machine
Company, however, formerly making spinning and other machinery, being
now out of business. In Providence and vicinity, including Pawtucket,
many machine firms started and still continue. One of the earlier pioneers,
however, the James Brown Company, of Pawtucket, has lately gone out
OF THE UNITED STATES 221
of business. At Lowell, Taunton and Biddeford the early shops still
continue. At Lewiston the former Lewiston Machine Company has been
disorganized, and at Philadelphia the once well-known Bridesburg Company
has long since demised. Hopedale and Whitinsville illustrate interesting in-
dustries, which have each their own town, with company control of locality,
transportation facilities, etc. While many of the shops control specialized
or patented features, Draper Company particularly confines its product to
patented devices ; in fact, this company acquires and controls more patents
than any concern in any line of business in the country with similar cap-
italization. There are only two concerns of any nature in the country which
average to develop or purchase more patents yearly.
It is mainly through improvement and adaptation to requirements that
the American industry of textile machinery manufacture has been devel-
oped : for our great competitor, England, having much greater field for
introduction, has developed the manufacture of textile machinery to such
an extent that its cheapness of production is unrivalled, and English ma-
chinery can be introduced in the United States, in spite of tariff, on account
of their superior economies, their low-paid labor being prominent as a
factor. American machinery, however, is particularly adapted to Amer-
ican requirements, and American improvements have been so protected
by patents as to eliminate foreign competition in many lines. American
cotton mills, equipped with the higher-priced American machinery, and
run with higher-priced labor, do compete in certain markets of the world
with English cotton mills filled with the cheaper English machinery and
run by more cheaply paid operatives. Had America the shipping facilities
with which England is favored, its foreign banking facilities and an even
chance for competition in foreign markets, we could give it severe com-
petition in many lines which it now monopolizes.
In speaking of the development of the textile industry through use
of American machinery, it is quite natural to quote more largely regarding
cotton manufacture, since that is not only the chief textile industry, but
other textile trades have not been as successful in meeting foreign com-
petition or in providing an individuality in product or process. It is well
known that the cotton industry in this country owes a large fraction of
its mills to the financial assistance and the personal encouragement of
leading machinery manufacturers. Had other textile industries the benefit
of as strong machinery interests, their history might be different.
There is hardly an industry of note known to the world where progress
by invention and use of improved machinery has made such strides as has
the industry of textiles. The first great change by elimination of labor
was in the adaptation of steam power, which made power-driven ma-
chinery possible. It is understood that a cotton-gin of to-day does work
equivalent to that of one thousand hand ginners. An operative in the
spinning room of a cotton mill tends from 1,000 to 1,500 spindles, each
222 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
one producing much more yarn than could be spun with the once familiar
spinning-wheel. It has been figured that with hand loom and spinning-
wheel, ten operatives, working ten hours per day each, could hardly to-
gether earn one dollar a month to-day, according to the present market
value of their possible product. A comparison of means is w|ell shown
by evidence easily available. The entire textile product of this country
is produced by less than one per cent of its population, while in Northern
China it is said the whole population weaves cotton cloth during the
winter, the hand looms in use yielding so meagre a product per operative.
Many attempts at introduction of improvements fail because of imper-
fections in the fundamental conceptions, errors in carrying out conceptions,
or inadvisability in method of introduction. Thus various lines of manu-
facture have been started at various times, to meet with discouragement or
disaster. In spite of promising experiments, the textile trade does not
yet definitely recognize any acceptable substitute for the saw-gin, in spite
of its known inefficiency. Cotton bales are still sold in abominable shape,
and hand pickers are still necessary in the cotton fields. Picking, carding
and roving machinery were standardized years ago. No one has succeeded
as yet in increasing the speed of the mule or spinning frame since the
adoption of the high-speed spindles. The automatic loom is the really
notable factor in modern development.
Improved machinery is of vital importance to a prosperous country
like America, where help is often scarce and labor high-priced. The in-
ventor and the builder must co-operate to meet the demand, and they must
be sufficiently appreciated by the m'ill owners, else the fundamental incentive
will be lacking.
OF THE UNITED STATES 223
EVOLUTION OF THE TRANSMISSION OF WATER POWER
BY CHARLES T. MAIN
One of the first practical applications of water power in this country was
for the old tidal mill on Mill Creek, near Boston. The development of
this early water power was followed by others, wiierever settlements were
made and water power was available. Often availability of water power
determined the location of the early settlement.
About 1725, the first water power plant was established along tITe
Niagara River. This power was used to drive a. saw-mill constructed by
the French, to furnish lumber for Fort Niagara. However, the first
extensive developments for industrial purposes may be said to have origi-
nated in the early part of the nineteenth century in textile mill com-
munities. The development at Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1822, was the
beginning of rapid strides in this direction. Following closely upon the
development at Lowell were the ones at Nashua, New Hampshire, in 1823;
Cohoes, New York, in 1S26; Norwich, Connecticut, in 1828; Augusta,
Maine, in 1834 ; Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1835 ; Hooksett, New
Hampshire, in 1841 ; Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1845, etc. The heads
under which these powers were developed ranged from 14 to 104 feet.
For utilizing the energy contained in water in the form of power,
many difTerent kinds of hydraulic motors have been invented and developed.
Such a motor usually consists of a wheel which is caused to revolve,
either by the weight of water falling from a higher to a lower level, or
by the dynamic pressure due to the change in direction and velocity of a
moving stream.
The first practical hydraulic motors used were called water wheels,
and the first vertical water wheels were called "Float Wheels."
Their origin can be traced ba.ck to the Chinese and Egyptians. The
wheels were suspended over some river, utilizing the energy from the
river current. These wheels were generally of crude construction, and
developed but a small portion of the energy of the passing stream. This
type is by no means obsolete, for it is yet used for minor irrigation purposes
in all countries. The most important installation of this type in com-
paratively modern times was that employed to drive the pumps for the
water supply of London about 1581.
The next step along practical lines was to confine the flow of water
from the river, by means of a canal, flume or pipe, and to utilize the
224 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
energy by means of the undershot and overshot water wheels. Both of
these types of wheels have also been in use for many centuries. As in
the float wheel, the energy of the water is exerted in the undershot wheel
through the impact due to the velocity. Although the undershot wheel
was a decided improvement over the float wheel, its efficiency was only
from twenty to forty per cent. The development of the overshot wheel
followed closely upon that of the undershot wheel, and was a great im-
provement from a standpoint of economy in the use of water. Its efficiency
ranged from sixty to eighty per cent. In the overshot wheel the energy
of the w|ater is applied directly through its weight by the action of gravity.
The overshot wheel, however, required higher heads for its application,
and in the latter part of the eighteenth century the breast wheel was
developed, which was especially applicable to small falls, for which the
undershot wheel had previously been used, but its efficiency exceeded that of
the undershot wheel, being from fifty to seventy per cent. In the breast
wheel the action of the water is partly by impact and partly by weight.
The last three types of wheels were the ones used in the early ap-
plication of water power in textile mills, and their use soon spread to
many other industries, especially to grist mills, many of which are still
in use.
During the latter part of the eighteenth century many improvements
were made on the breast wheel, among which should be mentioned that
of Poncelet, whose improvements, by means of ventilated curved buckets,
brought the efficiency of this type of water wheel to a point exceeding that
of the overshot wheel. About this time the fly-ball governor, which had
been designed and adopted as a governor for steam engines by Watt, was
applied to the governing of water wheels, and by means of these governors
the speed of the wheel, under varying loads, was kept sufficiently constant
for the purposes for which the power was then used.
These water wheels above described, when well constructed, have
given efficiencies practically equal to the best modern turbine, but on
account of their large size, and the serious effects of back water and ice
conditions, also on account of the small amount of power and slow speed,
they soon proved inadequate, as the mills and manufactories in which
they were employed were enlarged with the growth of these industries.
The first turbines used in this country were of the Fourneyron type,
developed by M. Fourneyron, in France, in the early part of the nineteenth
century. By 1840 many turbines of this type had been introduced in this
country. The great advantages of the turbine over the old-style water
wheels are as follows :
1. They occupy much smaller space.
2. On account of their comparatively high speeds, they can frequently
be used without gearing or other complicated means of transmission.
3. Some types will work submerged.
OF THE UNITED STATES 225
4. They may be utilized under any head or fall of water.
5. They are readily protected from ice interference.
6. Their speed can be regulated within narrow limits.
7. They are cheaper for the same amount of power.
8. More power can be developed in a single unit.
About 1840, Uriah A. Boyden, of Massachusetts, made a number of
improvements on the Fourneyron turbine, and several wheels of his design
were installed by the Appleton Company, at Lowell, in 1846. These tur-
bines showed an efficiency of eighty-eight per cent, and many turbines of
this type were installed throughout New England.
Mr. James B. Francis, engineer of the locks and canals, Lowell, Mass.,
designed a wheel of this type, which was erected in the Tremont Mills,
of Lowell, in 185 1, and made a series of tests which he published in his
book, "The Lowell Hydraulic Experiments."
In 1838, Samuel B. Howd, of Geneva, New York, patented the
"inward flow" turbine, in which the action of the Fourneyron turbine was
reversed, and this seems to be the origin of the American or Francis type
of turbine.
In 1849, James B. Francis designed an inward tiow turbine of the same
general type as the Howd turbine. Two of these turbines were constructed
by the Lowell Machine Shop for the Boott Cotton Mills. The turbines
designed by Francis were along more scientific lines and of better me-
chanical construction, and this type of turbine has been generally known
as the Francis turbine.
The advantages of this type of turbine were :
Increased efficiency at part load and smaller cost.
The Fourneyron turbine had a high efficiency at full load only, and
on account of its low speed was too expensive.
About the same time that the Francis turbine was being developed in
this country, the Jonval turbine was being introduced. This turbine was also
of French design, and also showed a higher efficiency at part gate than
the Fourneyron turbine, and was extensively used in this country for
some time. However, both of these French types were superseded by the
various forms of the American or Francis type, which proved considerably
cheaper and of higher efiiciency at part gate than either.
The three types of turbines mentioned are of the reaction type, in
which the energy is largely developed by reactive pressure. Besides the
advantage of higher efficiency at part gate already mentioned, both the
Jonval and Francis turbines have the additional advantage, that a draft
tube can be used with them, thus utilizing that part of the fall between
the runner wheel and the tailrace. These turbines can also be submerged
without interfering with the operation or efficiency, and are, therefore, very
desirable where variable tail water occurs.
In order to partially obtain the result of a draft tube with a Fourneyron
226 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
outward flow turbine, Boyden developed the diffuser for this type of turbine,
known by his name. Several per cent additional efficiency can be obtained
with this diffuser, but it is a question whether the additional economy thus
obtained will pay for the additional cost of the diffuser and the room
required for it.
Up to recently, turbine designers were under the impression that re-
action turbines were not adaptable to heads much over 150 feet. This
belief led to the development of the impulse turbine in this country, and
to the development of the action turbine in Europe. Both of these types
operate under the same hydraulic principle, and the energy is developed
entirely due to velocity. Both of these types have the disadvantage, when
used under comparatively low and medium heads, that no draft tube can be
used with them, consequently that part of the head between the runner
and the tailrace is lost. 1 his will be of considerable importance where the
head is small and the level of the tailwater is variable, as the head so lost
may be twenty-five per cent or more of the total. Where these types of
turbines are used under higher heads, the amount so lost is of little con-
sequence, being a very small per cent of the total head.
These types of turbines first came into prominence in the western
part of this country and in Switzerland. Undoubtedly they would have
been developed even if the belief that reaction turbines could not be used
under high heads did not exist, because the size of units required at that
time was small and some of the heads developed comparatively high. A
reaction turbine, having a fi.xed speed, is limited as to the smallest power
it can develop under any given head, so that, leaving out of consideration
the question of cost, there is a practically definite point where reaction
turbines must be abandoned and impulse or action turbines must be used.
However, the question of cost makes it desirable to use impulse or action
turbines even for sizes so large that reaction turbines could still be used.
Since the development of the electrical generator and electrical trans-
mission of power, it has become desirable to develop large quantities of
power in one place, and to develop large powers sometimes under high
heads, which were previously inaccessible. It has been found economical
to develop these large powers in very much larger units than had previously
been used. The mechanical construction of generators, particularly of
alternating current generators, make? it possible to use very high speeds
even for the larger sizes, and, due to the fact that the reaction type of
turbine can be operated at nearly twice the speed of the impulse or action
turbine, they were soon designed for higher heads than previously and with
every success.
It is a well known fact that some of the earliest turbines designed by
Boyden and Francis showed as high or higher efficiencies than most tur-
bines since built. This, however, does not mean that the turbine had not
been improved since then ; as a matter of fact, the improvement of the
OF THE UNITED STATES 227
turbine has been phenomenal. In the development of the early water
powers first cost was of primary consideration.
Very few streams were developed to their full capacity, and the most
successful turbine builder was the one who could market a turbine of great
power and high speed at the smallest cost per horse power, providing a
reasonably good efficiency could still be obtained. To show the success
obtained in arriving at this result, it is necessary to mention the progress
of but one builder, which is a good average among several. In 1859 he
designed a turbine of 48-inch diameter, which, under 16-foot head, de-
veloped 7Q.I H. P., at a speed of 102 R. P. M. By successive improvements,
his 48-inch turbine, in 1903, developed 325 H. P., at a speed of 139 R. P. M.
When we consider that the power and speed of a turbine runner of
fixed diameter is largely a measure of the efficiency of that runner, it will
be understood that an increase of 410 per cent in power and 13.6 per cent
in speed, without sacrificing the efiiciency materially, is no small improve-
ment. Since the development of large water powers during the last few
years, and in plants where the total power available can be readily mar-
keted, the question of efficiency has again become of primary considera-
tion. In low head plants the economical solution is still often found in
the use of the high-power, high-speed turbines, and this simply reduces
itself to a problem of additional investment to obtain higher efficiency by
means of the use of a smaller power and lower-speed turbine, and the
return obtainable on the additional power gained by the higher efficiency.
In plants where the head is considerable it is generally found that a
commercial speed can be obtained with a low-power, low-speed wheel, and
it is thus possible to again return to the higher efficiencies of the early
turbine.
In a well-designed, modern turbine, where the designer can practically
choose the speed at which the turbine is to operate, an efficiency of ninety
per cent can be obtained. Most modern, high-head turbines show an
efficiency of eighty-five to ninety per cent in place at the power house.
Perhaps of greater importance than high efficiency in a modern plant,
is the speed regulation of turbines. As has already been stated, the steam
engine governor invented by Watt was successfully applied to water wheels
before the invention of the modern turbine, and the regulation thus ob-
tained was satisfactory for the users of power in those days. With the
introduction of turbines, hydraulic power was used for a greater variety
of purposes, in some of which comparatively close regulation was desired,
and many cheap mechanical governors were invented to obtain this result.
However, very close regulation of speed was not of sufficient commercial
importance to permit the use of expensive governors, which would increase
the first cost of the plant materially.
The success of the comparatively recent application of hydraulic
power to the operation of alternators in parallel, and to the genepation of
228 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
current for electric lighting, street railway and synchronous motor loads,
has been largely dependent upon the possibility of obtaining close speed
regulation of the generating units, accompanied with good water economy
and without undue shock upon machinery and penstocks while working
under extremely variable loads.
The method used for regulating the speed of reaction turbines is to
restrict the amount of water flowing through the runner as the load de-
creases, or to increase the flow as the load increases. Three forms of gates
are and have been in common use to obtain this result ; namely, the cylinder,
register and swivel gates.
The cylinder gate consists of a cylinder closely fitting the guide that
by its position admits or restricts the flow of water into the buckets. With
this type of gate the guides are fixed. When partially closed, the cylinder
gate causes- a sudden contraction in the vein of water, which is again sud-
denly enlarged in entering the runner. These conditions produce eddying,
which result in decreased efficiency at part gate. This type of gate is
very bulky, and for large turbines heavy counterweights must be used to
operate them. They are, therefore, not well adapted where close regulation
and high efficiency are desired.
Turbines with this type of gate are well adapted for driving pulp
grinders or mills, where the load is practically constant and where they
are operated generally at full load. They can then be regulated by hand
or a slow-moving, mechanical governor. They have no advantage, however,
for even this kind of load, where good head gates exist to close off the
water from the turbine, the only advantage of the cylinder gate being
the ease with which they can be tightly closed even with crude work-
manship.
The "register gate" consists of a cylinder case with apertures to
correspond with the apertures in the guides, and is so arranged that, when
in the proper position, the apertures register and freely admit the water
to the wheel, and is also .so constructed that, when properly turned, the
gate cuts off the passage completely or partially, as desired. Considerable
eddying is produced by the partially closed register gate, with a consequent
decrease in part gate efficiency. The part gate efficiency is not much better
than with the cylinder gate, but it is more adaptable to close governor
regulation. This type of gate has never found much favor in this country
because the cylinder gate is cheaper and simpler.
The swivel or wicket gates have always been used in a more or
less crude form, and, in their modern form, are undoubtedly the best
gate, especially for moderate or high heads and where a high efficiency
is desired at part gate with close regulation. When well constructed
mechanically, they are as tight as cylinder gates, and they are usually so
made for higher heads; but, when used for low heads, it will be found
cheaper to provide good head gates which can be used to shut off the
OF THE UNITED STATES 329
water from the flume. The swivel type of gate is well adapted to close
regulation and to obtain a nearly constant efficiency over a large range of
gate openings.
The efficiency of a modern high head reaction turbine recently tested,
is as follows:
Eighty per cent at half load; 85 per cent at three-quarter load, and 84
per cent at full load. The turbine tested was of 10,000 H. P. capacity,
operating under 550 feet head at 375 R. P. M. It will be noticed that the
best efficiency obtained was that at three-quarter load. This brings out
another decided advantage of the swivel gate turbine; namely, by means
of proper design, the highest efficiency can be obtained at a reduced gate
opening, thus allowing for an overload capacity, such as all liberally
designed generators have.
The regulation of the earlier impulse turbines of importance was accom-
plished by means of a deflecting nozzle. Most of these turbines operated
under comparatively high heads in connection with long penstocks, and
the danger of causing shocks in these penstocks by varying the flow of
water in them led to the adoption of the deflecting nozzle. With the deflect-
ing nozzle the flow of water is kept constant; if any variation of load occurs,
the governor deflects the stream issuing from the nozzle, partially away
from the runner buckets or farther into them, depending upon whether
the load decreases or increases.
The action turbine usually has a series of nozzles, and to regulate the
flow of water either one or more of these nozzles are partially opened
or closed by the governor. It can be seen from the description of the
deflecting nozzle that it is very wasteful if the load is variable. This,
however, is true not only of the deflecting nozzle impulse turbine, but if
otlier types of turbines are used in connection with long penstocks, where
danger of water hammer or shock exists, they must also be arranged to
be made equally wasteful to avoid the change in flow and consequent shock,
or else provision must be made to avoid this waste. To partially overcome
this waste under such conditions as described, pressure regulators and
relief valves have been developed. The object of these auxiliaries is to
momentarily waste some water while the load on the turbine is thrown off,
and, after the new load has reached a stationary point, to either close
automatically or mechanically.
Such pressure regulators, however, provide against a shock only
which may occur when the load is thrown off; an equally serious result
may occur when the load is thrown on faster than gravity can accelerate
sufficient water to provide the turbine for the additional load. In this
case a surge would occur, tending to collapse the penstock. It has been
found that these surges are always considerably less than the shocks for
any given set of conditions, and many cases, therefore, occur where it is
necessary to provide against the shock, but not against the surge. If,
230 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
however, the surge also becomes greater than permissible, a standpipe must
be resorted to. Since even with a standpipe the shock will still be greater
than the surge, it may be necessary or commercial to provide both the
standpipe and pressure regulator.
The conditions of installation have a marked effect on the difficulties
of turbine speed governing, and often the devices above mentioned, together
with additional ones, must be provided for regulation, even if not neces-
sary, for the safety of a penstock.
If the turbine is installed in an open pit or flume, as is often done in
low head plants, and has only a short draft tube and the water flows to the
gates in every direction, the velocity of flow is very slow. The quantity
of water which moves at a high velocity is confined to that in the runner
and draft tube, and the change in velocity and momentum, due to the change
of load, produces no serious effect. If, however, the turbine is an encased
one, and the water must be brought to it through a long penstock, the
conditions become more complicated. In this case a large amount of
energy is stored in the moving column of water, and a change in its
velocity involves a change in its kinetic energy, which may, if an attempt
is made at too rapid regulation, leave the turbine deficient in energy; when
increased power is desired, or when the power is decreased, may produce
such shocks as will seriously affect regulation.
A fly-wheel on the turbine shaft can partially be relied upon to take up
much of the energy produced when the load suddenly becomes less, and
it will also provide energy if the turbine is deficient, due to lack of water
supply. It is, of course, a commercial question which must be solved for
each installation, for it may be cheaper to provide larger penstocks with
consequent reduced velocities, or to provide a fly-wheel, standpipe, pres-
sure regulator, etc., or two or more of these to get the desired regulation.
All of these devices can be applied to the impulse turbine as well as
the reaction turbine, and this has been successfully done in several recent
modern plants. At the present time only the P'rancis tvpe of reaction turbine
and the impulse turbine are being used in this country.
The reaction turbine is being successfully designed for higher heads,
and experience shows that if carefully and substantially designed, such as
is possible with the modern cast iron and cast steel spiral casings, and
improved gate mechanisms, there is no limit as to the head for which the
reaction turbine can be used.
As already stated in this paper, a reaction turbine is limited as to the
smallest amount of power it can develop under any given head, so that the
only limit as to the head for which it can be successfully designed is the
size of the unit. This limit for a 10,000 H. P. turbine is approximately
650 feet for a normal commercial speed. However, tlie higher the speed
allowable, the higher the head for which the same power output of turbine
can be designed.
OF THE UNITED STATES 2ji
The power of the early water wheels was usually transmitted through
gearing, the ratio of which was such as to increase the speed to that desired
for the main shaft. From the main shaft it was transmitted to the various
countershafts and machinery by means of either belts or rope drives.
Whereas, the water wheels were all designed with horizontal shafts,
the first turbines were constructed with vertical shafts. Their power was
usually transmitted to a horizontal shaft through bevel gears, and by this
arrangement a number of turbines could be arranged to drive a single
line shaft. Very often a separate canal with its turbine was provided for
every separate part of the mill. When this method proved too expensive
or when what proved to be a desirable location for the canal and turbines
was not economically accessible for the mill, a rope drive was used to
transmit the power of the turbines to the mill, sometimes several hundred
yards away. The losses in transmission were often excessive, amounting to
sometimes fifty per cent and more.
The development of the horizontal encased turbine, doing away with
part of the canals, the water being brought to them in penstocks, was a great
improvement over the vertical open-flume turbine. It was particulafly
adaptable to heads over twenty feet and could be located above the tail
water. This made it accessible and step bearings and gears were done
away with, the shafting being driven directly off the turbine shaft by
means of belts. In order to obtain higher speeds for low heads, two or
more runners were placed on one shaft.
Up to 1895 there were but few turbines with anything but mechanical
transmission. About this time, the electrical generator, direct connected
to the turbine shaft, came into general use, and soon large units were being
built of this type. At first the turbines were of the horizontal type only,
and under the lower heads two to six runners were often placed on one
shaft, in order to increase the speed.
The old type of single vertical turbine, geared to a jack shaft, is still
being used extensively in low head plants. The speed obtained on the jack
shaft is usually made sufficient to directly connect the generator. Vertical
turbines, with generators of the vertical type direct connected to them, have
come into use of late years. Usually two or more runners are placed on one
shaft to increase the speed. The object is to do away with the gearing, thus
avoiding the loss in them and their upkeep, which latter is usually a
considerable item. An important advantage of the direct connected vertical
unit over the horizontal type is that the generator can always be placed
above the highest head and tail water. This is particularly true of open-
flume turbines in any case, and true of both open and enclosed turbines
where the tail water varies beyond the allowable length of a draft tube.
I desire to acknowledge the assistance of Mr. W. F. Uhl in the
preparation of this article.
232 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
ELECTRIC POWER AS APPLIED TO TEXTILE MACHINERY
BY SIDNEY B. PAINE
The history of the development and growth of the textile industry is
made up of many chapters, each chapter so closely related to all the others
that none can be studied independently. Improvements in one process or
in one machine have led to changes at other points, and thus progress has
been made first in one department and then in another, with a consequent
advance all along the line. It is purposed in this chapter to follow one
branch of this development and to describe the conditions attending the
earlier installations of the electric system to indicate the several steps in
the development and application, and to show the direct and indirect eflfects
upon the industry which have followed its adoption.
Previous to the year 1886 electric motors were practically unknown in
the commercial world. Vanderpoel, Sprague, Brush and other pioneers in
this field had installed a few continuous current motors, but not until 1888
or 1889 did the public acquire sufficient confidence in the electric motor to
depend upon it for important installations. The alternating current motor
was still, more or less, in the laboratory stage, the first polyphase induction
motor being placed upon the market in 1892. Previous to that time, the
use of motors in textile mills had been confined to a few isolated cases
where small continuous current machines had been installed to furnish sup-
plementary power, but no mill had placed its sole dependence upon the elec-
tric system. It was considered that it might be useful where "it was neces-
sary to carrj' power for any distance beyond the ordinary reach of the
mechanical drive; also that, in a few cases where the drive was very com-
plicated, possibly it might furnish a simpler solution than could be oflfered
by shafting and belting. Even the most progressive of the mill engineers
did not believe that it would ever be a serious competitor of the mechanical
system, especially in new mills. The advocates of the electric system were
obliged to labor for months before the first opportunity was given to demon-
strate that an entirely new field was being opened up, and that, with the
freedom afl^orded the engineer, results could be accomplished which could
be attained by no other system. It is true, also, that at the beginning all
of the advantages of the electric system were not fully appreciated, even
by its most earnest supporters ; but, as the introduction of the system pro-
gressed, new advantages were realized, and in many ways the results proved
even better than its early advocates expected. In view of the above, it may
OF THE UNITED STATES 233
be of interest to explain somewhat in detail the conditions attending the
first installation.
On July 31, 189';, a contract was closed by the General Electric Com-
pany with the CoUimbia Mills Company, Columbia, S. C, for an electrical
equipment consisting of two 500-kilowatt, 3-phase, 36-cycle, 600-volt gen-
erators and seventeen sixty-five horsepower induction motors. The exe-
cution of this contract had been preceded by a most careful consideration
of the whole subject, extending over several months, by the engineer, Mr.
Stephen Greene, of the firm of Lockwood, Greene & Company. The prob-
lems presented were of an unusual nature. It had been proposed to drive
this mill by water taken from the canal of the Columbia Water Power Com-
pany. This canal had been built many years before to permit the passage of
boats around the rapids in the Congaree River, and followed the course of
the river very closely. As there was no available mill site between the canal
and the river on the property purchased by the Columbia Mills Company,
the engineers had been considering two different plans of driving the mill
mechanically. One plan involved the location of the wheels beneath the
mill, which would have necessitated the construction of a very expensive tail
race under the canal. The alternative plan considered the location of the
wheel house between the canal and the river and the operation of the mill
by means of a rope drive across the canal. Both of these plans would have
been very costly. The General Electric Company proposed to locate the
mill back from the canaJ, where the cost of the construction of the mill
itself would be very much reduced, and to which point it would be conve-
nient to bring a spur track from the railroad. By this latter plan the power
house was to be located at a point between the canal and the river, where
the best conditions for receiving and discharging the water were to be
found. The simplicity of this plan immediately appealed to the engineers.
At that time, however, no application of the system had been made on such
an extensive scale and where so much depended upon its success. No similar
installations could be referred to as examples of what could be accomplished,
and to that extent the plan proposed by the General Electric Company was
entirely theoretical, although it seemed the most feasible and simple solu-
tion of the problems encountered. It was not without much adverse criti-
cism that it was finally adopted, one prominent manufacturer terming it "a
most hazardous and dangerous experiment." The facts of the case were
laid before three of the larger electrical companies, each of which was in-
vited to submit a report and recommendation as to the best solution of the
problem, together with a proposal based upon same. It is not surprising
in view of the condition of the art at that time that two of the three com-
peting electrical companies suggested that a large continuous current motor
should be used to drive each room, following in this respect the plan adopted
by the best mechanical system then in use. The original recommendations
of the General Electric Company., however, were finally adopted, and the
234 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
mill was subdivided into seventeen comparatively small sections, each driven,
independently of all the others, by its own motor. Each department was
kept distinct from all others. In order to save floor space, the motors were
suspended from the ceiling, and in most cases each was provided with two
pulleys on each end to equalize the strain on the shaft and to reduce to a
minimum the friction and wear on the bearings. It is interesting in pass-
ing to note that the type of motor selected, as well as the plan in all its
important details as recommended by the General Electric Company, are
those which have been adopted in practically all textile mills using what is
known as the ''group system'' of electric driving.
The success attending the introduction of the electric drive at the Col-
umbia Mills resulted in its adoption by many other mills in that section,
where water power was available. In some other parts of the country
the electric system was used as additional power to supplement insufficient
mechanical systems. The advantages obtained by the subdivision of the
mill into small sections in the Columbia Mills installation became so apparent
that, in i8q6. a careful study was made of the possibilities of applying the
motors directly to the textile machinery. On March i, 1897, a contract
was closed by the General Electric Company with the Anderson Cotton
A-Iills. of Anderson, S. C, for forty-two six horse-power motors. Each of
these motors was so located as to drive a spinning frame from each end
of the motor shaft through a friction clutch. This installation proved so
successful that two repeat orders were placed for similar equipments. Al-
though a marked increase of production resulted from this application, it
was not generally adopted, however, for several reasons. The motors at
that time were so expensive as to preclude the advisability of driving each
frame by its own motor, and the plan of driving two frames by one motor
was very limited in its application, inasmuch as it was impracticable, unless
the motor and frames could be located upon an absolutely solid foundation.
At the Ander.son Mills the frames and motor were located upon a concrete
floor. Inasmuch as the spinning frame would usually be located on the top
floor of a mill, this condition could not be duplicated in the ordinary mill
with its wooden floors. Both of these difficulties have since been over-
come The principal objection, however, still remained that this method of
connecting the motors directly to the frames did not permit any changes
in the speed of the frame cylinder. Accordingly, experiments were made,
in 1901, at the Pierce Mills, in New Bedford, with a view of driving the
frame by a pinion on the motor shaft, which meshed into a gear on the
cylinder shaft. By reason, however, of the inertia of the rotating member
of the motor as then designed, with its large diameter and comparatively
heavy weight, too long a period elapsed between the time when the current
w'lLS shut off and the frame was stopped, thus permitting the yarn to kink
and break. Later improvements in the design and reduction in the first
cost of electric motors have rendered this form of gear driving feasible.
OF THE UNITED STATES 23s
and it is now being adopted in many cases, modified in some instances by
the substitution of chains and sprockets for the gears. Since these installa-
tions were made at the Anderson Mills and Pierce Mills, modifications and
changes have been made in the design of alternating current motors, and it
is quite probable that in the near future the desired variations in speed
may be secured with an alternating current motor directly attached to the
cylinder shaft. It is quite probable also that .some mechanical means may
be devised whereby, with the motor running at uniform speed, this desirable
result may be obtained.
Previous to the year 1897 the electric generators supplying current
to the motors in textile mills had either been driven by water wheels or
had been operated from steam engines by means of belts or ropes. The
electric system had not sufficiently demonstrated its advantages to lead mill
engineers to consider the installation of a large reciprocating engine with
a generator directly connected thereto. It is interesting to note in this con-
nection that Mr. Stephen Greene, to whose foresight and courage the first
installation owed its adoption, was also the engineer in charge in this sec-
ond step in the application of the electric system in the driving of textile
mills. On November 24, 1S97, a contract was closed by the Lancaster Mills,
of Clinton, Mass., with the General Electric Company for a 1,250-kiIowatt,
3-phase, 40-cycle, fioo-volt generator, directly connected to a cross-com-
pound Cooper-Corliss engine. The engine had a speed of seventy-five revo-
lutions per minute. This engine and generator were used to drive about
one-half of the mill, the balance still being operated by the mechanical sys-
tem. So successful were the results obtained by this installation that on
May 10, 1899, a 'second contract was closed, also with the General Electric
Company, covering a 1,650-kilowatt, 40-cycle generator, together with a
Cooper-Corliss engine designed for a speed of seventy and one-half revo-
lutions per minute. With the addition of this second generator the entire
premises were driven electrically. In view of the criticisms which have been
made on account of the periodicity (forty cycles) adopted in this and later
plants, it is proper to state that it was adopted in order to facilitate the
operation of the generators in parallel. The prevailing periodicity at that
time was sixty cycles, but up to that time no generators of the slow speed
called for by the above contract had. been operated in parallel on sixty cycles.
On accoimt of this slow speed it was considered necessary to adopt a nnich
lower frequency, and forty cycles was chosen, and for several years con-
tinued to be the standard for such work.
Previous to 1899 the applications of the electric drive in textile mills,
in which steam engines furnished the motive power, had been confined en-
tirely to the replacement of the mechanical system. The Olympia Mills, of
Columbia. S. C, was the first new mill, so far as we have any record, in
which it was contemplated at the outset to distribute the power electrically
where steam engines were to be used to drive the generators. W. B. Smith,
236 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Whaley 8z Company, of Columbia, S. C, were the engineers for this mill.
A contract was closed September 13, 1899, with the General Electric Com-
pany covering three 1,300-kilowatt, 40-cycle, 600-volt generators, each ar-
ranged for direct connection to a Mcintosh & Seymour vertical cross-com-
pound engine, running at a speed of 133 revolutions per minute.
It was in the silk industry that the first application of individual motors
to looms was made in this country. For several years this method of driv-
ing had been common in Germany, France and Switzerland, but the com-
paratively high first cost of the motors had precluded its adoption in this
country in spite of its advantages. In March, 1901, however, the Royal
Weaving Company, of Pawtucket, R. I., imported 170 looms, to each of
which was attached a one-third horse-power Oerlikon motor. A reduction
in the cost of induction motors has since rendered this system very attrac-
tive, and there are to-day many thousand silk, woolen and worsted looms
driven in this manner.
The Saxony Worsted Mills, of Newton, Mass.. was the first textile
manufacturing company to venture upon tlie driving of each mule by its
own motor. On December 5, 1906, a contract was clf«ed with the General
Electric Company for sixteen motors for this purpose, and six months later
the balance of the mules in that mill were thus equipped. Up to that time
only the group system of driving had been used in the operation of mules
on account of the variable nature of the load and the special characteristics
which would be required by the motors. This problem was successfully
solved, however, in this mill, and for smoothness of operation and ea.se of
control it cannot be duplicated by the mechanical system.
RESULTING EFFECTS.
With the adoption of the electric system it has become necessary
to obtain more accurate information in regard to the dis^tribution of
power in the several departments of a mill. Before the advent of this
system the mill engineers had determined the total amount of power re-
quired to operate an entire mill under given conditions, but the results of
an error in distribution of that power were not so serious, as an under-
estimate in one department would be balanced in all probability by an
overestimate in another department. With the subdivided system of driv-
ing, more accurate information was required, and, as the extent of that
subdivision increased and the motors operating under the group system
were reduced in size until finally the individual drive was reached, it be-
came very necessary to know the power required by each of the several
machines under the many diverse conditions under which it would be called
upon to operate. Thus the electric system has compelled the manufac-
turer and the engineer to ascertain more accurately and more in detail
than was previously the case the distribution of power about his mill, and
OF THE UNITED STATES 237
a means has been provided whereby unnecessary consumption of power can
be avoided. Wherever the electric drive has been adopted, especially where
subdivision has been followed, an increased production has resulted. This
is due to the omission of steps in the transmission, thus reducing the op-
portunities for loss of speed, the speed being maintained nearer to the
theoretical maximum. This more regular and constant speed has also re-
sulted in corresponding improvement in the quality. This is most marked
where the motor is applied directly to the loom, as the "beat up" is uni-
form. The fire risk from overheated journals and from rubbing belts has
been reduced to the same extent that these items have been eliminated.
The manufacturing rooms have been made cleaner and lighter, and the air
has been freed from the lint and dirt circulated by the large horizontal
belts. This has been of direct benefit to the operators. In large steam-
driven mills, using over 1,800 horsepower, the first cost has been reduced
below that of the mechanically driven mill in the majority of cases, espe-
cially if the looms are located in a separate weave shed. This has been
brought about, in part, by the introduction of the steam turbine in place
of the reciprocating engine. Mill sites, not otherwise suitable for the pur-
pose, have been made available, as the steampower plant and the manu-
facturing buildings could be located at a point most suitable for the processes
carried on in the several buildings respectively.
Probably the most marked result following the introduction of the
electric system, however, has been found in the concentration of power
plants. Under the mechanical system each factory, and oftentimes each
large building, was compelled to have its own independent prime mover.
In many mill yards in which the mechanical system is used there will be
found several independently operated steam plants, each complete in itself
and each under the control of a high-salaried engineer. Each manufactur-
ing building is operated entirely independently of the others, and in case
of an accident in one building the machinery in that building cannot be
driven from any of the other power plants. Under such a system, if, for
any reason, the original estimate on the power required in one building
was exceeded, the manufacturer could not draw from his other power
plants to supplement this deficiency, although there might be a surplus in
each of the others. The larger the manufacturing establishment, the more
marked do these limitations of the mechanical system become. With the
advent of the electric system this was entirely changed, and large power
plants are now being erected at the most advantageous point, and all the
power required about the entire premises is being generated in one central
station. Not only does this result in economy in the cost of fuel and labor
and a reduction in first cost of the power plant itself, but it permits the
employment of a higher grade chief engineer and insures the operation of
the plant at its highest efficiency. In case of an accident within the power-
house, selection may be made by the manufacturer of those portions of
238
TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
his establishment which it is most desirable for him to operate. This plan
of the concentration of power plants is being followed in many of the
larger mills throughout the country.
The advent of the electric system has opened up an entirely new field
of operation for the engineer and the manufacturer. This has already been
referred to briefly in regard to the utilization of hitherto inaccessible water
powers. Probably no other .section of the country has profited as much
by the introduction of the electric system as have North Carolina, South
Carolina and Georgia. In these states many millions of dollars have been
invested in the development of water powers which would otherwise have
remained unused. On account of the cheapness of the power thus de-
veloped, many textile mills have been built which could not have been oper-
ated at a profit under previous conditions. The current from these cen-
tral stations has been distributed over very wide areas to these mills, which
have been located at the distribution centres, and the amount of money
invested indirectly in the building of towns and other enterprises exceeds
many times the investment in the electrical apparatus itself. New villages
have been built and employment has been given to many thousands of oper-
atives who otherwise would have remained on the farm or in other less
remunerative occupations. Thus, most important, economical, sociological
and education results, not contemplated by its early advocates, have followed
the introduction of this electric system.
OF THE UNITED STATES ' 2.-59
MILL ENGINEERING
BY F. W. DEAN
Scope of the Work. — The work of the mill engineer and architect
consists in determining the general arrangement of a plant for the ac-
commodation of the machinery necessary to produce a given quantity of
goods of a given kind, the determination of the kind and the amount of
the power, the determination and arrangement of the machinery of trans-
mission and the design of the buildings. The contour of the land, the
surroundings of the site, the location of the means of transportation, and
other things modify the design. The work of the designer is more of an
engineering character than otherwise, and architecture takes a secondary
position. The mill engineer should be a man well trained in the funda-
mental principles of engineering, for with this equipment he can under-
take problems and carry them out with wise discrimination. He should
know many things about boilers, engines, machinery of transmission and
building constraction. He will often be called upon to undertake the con-
struction of a mill for the manufacture of articles that he has never seen
or scarcely heard of, or, in textile mills, for the production of a fabric
entirely new to him; having a sound engineering education, reinforced
with sufficient experience to produce sound judgment, he will be well
qualified to carry out such projects.
Regular Mill Construction. — Regular mill construction originated in
New England and is carried out to the greatest perfection in that part of
the country, chiefly in textile mills. As now designed by the best mill
engineers, it consists of brick walls, heavy transverse wood floor beams,
covered with thick, splined plank, spiked on at right angles to the beams,
the latter being covered with top flooring nailed at right angles to tFie
plank. The spaces between the centres of the beams, or bays, should not
be so wide as to require beams at right angles to the main beams, or
any subdivision of the bays. Mill construction contemplates the smallest
practicable number of heavy beams with heavy planks, the simplest forms,
the least surface for contact with fire, and concealed metal where used.
It also contemplates columns from bottom to top, resting on cast iron
pintles through the beams, so that there will be no lengthwise shrinkage of
the column system. By this construction the shrinkage of the floor beams
and planks affects each floor independently, and is not cumulative.
The floor beams tie the sides of the building together, and when the
240 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
beams are placed and fastened to each other and to the walls, there should
be no transverse strain on the brickwork until there is a disturbing effort,
such as wind pressure and vibration from machinery. On account of
the great compressive strength of cast iron, pintles are small in diameter,
even when hollow, and therefore cut away the beams but little. They
thus give room for a wrought iron dog on each side with ends bent over
not quite at right angles, so that when driven into holes in the beams they
draw them firmly together. The beams should not be fastened to the walls
until after the dogs are driven, so that they will slide in the walls as the
dogs draw them together. This requires the use of a wall plate or wall
box, which has no projections to enter slots or holes in the undersides of
the beams, for such a method cannot be carried out in practice without
preventing the consummation of the desirable features of construction
described above. The only way to fasten the beams to the wall plates
or boxes to conform to the best principles of mill construction is to use
lag screws passing through the plates, which project out of the walls
sufficiently far for this purpose. The plates or boxes have ribs that can
be built into the walls and thus tied to the brickwork. After the beams
are fully placed the column caps are secured to the beams by lag screws,
thus firmly securing the columns and tying the beams together on the
underside.
Beams usually end over columns so that a half hole is cut through
their ends for the pintles, but if a beam does not end over a column a hole
is bored for the pintle and dogs are not required. No attempt should be
made to have the pintle fit the hole, as it should be free to maintain
its position when moving the beam and driving the dogs. When cast iron
columns are used, pintles are usually dispensed with, the columns passing
through the beams to the level of the floor and there formed to receive
the columns of the next story.
While there is no objection to carrying an iron column through a floor
at the top of the column, there i.s a serious objection to carrying it, or a
wood column, through a floor at the bottom of the column. In the
latter case, when a floor above falls, it is likely to push columns over,
and if they pass through the floor below the beams will be pried endwise.
This may be sufficient to cause them to drop off the columns, thus caus-
ing another floor to fall, and in fact all floors below would probably
fall. The prying of the beams pushes the walls out and thus the absence
of the most advanced features of mill construction might cause the wreck
of a whole building if the top floor should be destroyed by fire.
Another advantage of the use of pintles is that on account of their
small diameter the beams rest over the body of the columns and are not
held to any great extent by the column caps. Even if the ends of the lat-
ter should break off, the beams would stay in position. This is an argument
in favor of using caps and pintles for iron columns, for when such columns
OF THE UNITED STATES 241
pass through beams they cause the weight of the floor to be carried by
brackets cast on their sides, tlius putting the brackets in transverse strain,
which is not desirable.
Cast iron columns with separate bases and caps simplify fottndry opera-
tions to a desirable extent, especially as mill castings are likely to be made
at second-rate foundries.
Dogs should always be put in on the tops of beams and depressed in
grooves, so that the floor planks can be laid without difficulty. The plank
prevents their coming out, and they are concealed.
Floor beams, when doubled, should have no space between them, as
was formerly the practice, to permit air to circulate between, for the pur-
pose of preventing dry rot, as these spaces hold fire tenaciously.
Floor planks are u.sually two and one-half inches to five inches thick,
and occasionally six inches thick, and in widths not exceeding ten inches.
They should be at least two bays long, except enough one-bay lengths to
cause breaking of lengths. It is not necessary to have every other plank
break joints. Four or five planks of the same length can be laid side by
side, and the next set can break joints with these.
In cases where there are twice as many bays as there are rows of
columns, the intermediate beams rest on longitudinal stringers. Vertical
shrinkage is considerable in this construction, and pintle tops may appear
so far above the top floor as to show a cavity underneath, unless they are
suitably designed.
Columns should not be bored, because nobody is able to identify bene-
fit from this practice.
Nai.ls should enter beams about three inches, and should be two in num-
ber at each bearing. Top floors should be of square-edged maple, in lengths
of not less than six feet or eight feet. They are usually about five inches
wide, and usually seven-eighths inch thick. They should be nailed with
two nails two and one-half inches long, on diagonal lines sixteen inches
apart, along each board, with two nails at each end. Nails should be set
and boards should be planed after nailing.
Roofs are framed, supported and planked similar to floors, using dogs,
and they should be driven before the brickwork is built aroimd the anchors.
When there is not a row of columns in the centre of the room, the roof
beams should not be carried on the slant to the centre of the mill and there
fastened together with the expectation that a stable roof will result. Hori-
zontal beams should run between the two rows of columns next to the cen-
tre, and the roof slant should be obtained by wedge-shaped pieces nailed to
the beams. Roof beams are not secured to the walls by means of plates
or beam boxes, but plates could he advantageously used.
It is best to have inside drainage for mill roofs, and this can be best
accomplished by upturned edges. Conductors can be of galvanized iron
242 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
or cast iron pipes, the latter being preferable. Thimbles should be of cop-
per and goose necks of lead, not fastened into the conductors.
Roofs for textile mills should be covered with six-ply tar and gravel
roofing. While there are many cheaper roofings that are guaranteed for ten
vears, the thickness of six-ply tar and gravel roofing is advantageous on
account of its heat non-conducting properties. Cold roofs cause conden-
sation under certain circumstances. Weave shed roofs require further in-
sulation.
Fire Protection. — The simplicity and lack of interruption of the spaces
between the beams, of mill construction, augment the range and add to
the effectiveness of automatic sprinklers. The water in a sprinkler system
should flow promptly with great force, and come in plentiful quantity. If
a city supply for any reason cannot fulfil these requirements, there should
be an elevated tank and a fire pump. The tank should contain water
enough to be effective while the fire pump is being started, and the pump
should be sufficiently protected to be the last thing to be disabled. The
source of supply of the pump, if a pond or river is not available, should
be a reservoir, the capacity of which is specified by the insurance company.
Steel Floor Beams. — Steel floor beams are used somewhat, but they
do not fulfil the requirements of regular mill construction, because they
soften when heated and the floors therefore fall in case of fire. They have
the advantages of rendering narrow piers and great width of windows prac-
ticable for a given width of bay. and permitting columns to be farther apart
than with wood beams. This facilitates the arrangement of machinery by
diminishing the number of columns.
For securing the planks, nailing strips four inches thick, and as wide
as the flange, are fastened to the beams by means of lag screws, through the
upper flanges, at intervals of about thirty-six inches on each side, the holes
alternating. To these the planks are nailed as usual. Planks are also se-
cured directly to the flanges or steel beams by driving small railroad spikes
from below bv means of pneumatic hammers.
Reinforced Concrete. — Reinforced concrete is a comparatively recent
material for use in mill construction. It has the advantages of resisting
fire better, probably, than any other material, and of being rigid. It is cus-
tomary to say that it co.sts from ten to fifteen per cent more than regular
mill construction, but it is more likely to be twenty-five per cent. It is not
only more costly than regular mill construction, but there are secondary
additional costs due to special devices for securing hangers, pipings, wires,
etc. These should all be worked out in advance so as to avoid cutting the
concrete. Concrete floors often must be covered with wood becatise of
the prejudice against concrete. This prejudice doubtless comes from the
cooling efTect of concrete on the feet.
All things considered, including the present price of lumber and bricks,
reinforced concrete may be said to be somewhat premature for mill con-
OF THE UNITED STATES 243
struction. Means of reducing the cost of forms are being studied by making
them of metal and in such a way that they can be used repeatedly.
One objection to reinforced concrete, as usually constructed, is the
depth of the beams, and this has been overcome by the so-called mushroom
or similar construction.
While concrete buildings have failed, this appears to have occurred dur-
ing construction.
Shafting^. — Little can be said concerning shafting, which, for many
years, has been very perfectly developed. Ball and socket bearings and ring
oiling have made it as perfect as practicable without ball or roller bearings.
Since automobiles have shown how perfect such bearings are, it is time
that they were given more serious consideration in mills. The friction of
textile mills ranges from about eighteen per cent to forty-five per cent,
thirty per cent being common, and it can be reduced, probably, to twelve
per cent by ball or roller bearings. The larger frictions are caused by want
of alignment, which should be more frequently attended to.
Use of Electricity. — In the case of a simple arrangement of buildings
where direct belt or rope drives can be used, there is nothing as good as
.an economical piston engine using belts with power up to about 1,000 horse- -
power and ropes for powers above. Electricity is to be preferred where
mills are at odd angles with each other, where they are scattered, as is
usually the case in old plants and where a central station can be used. The
latter reduces the cost of attendance, diminishes waste room and contributes
to convenience in several ways.
Alternating current is to be preferred to direct in textile mills. In such
mills the power factor is high and the disadvantage of a low power factor
disappears.
Group driving is in general to be preferred in textile mills. In the
cases of machines that run intermittently, individual motors are to be pre-
ferred. For elevators the motors should not be constant-running, because
they reduce the power factor.
Piston Engines and Turbines. — When electricity is used steam turbines
are to be preferred to piston engines. They are now* fully as economical in
the smaller, more so in the larger sizes, take up less room, require less
foundations, use less oil and general supplies, and are more reliable. They
use no oil in the steam and thus render condensed steam harmless for
boilers, which, in bad water districts, is of the greatest importance.
Boilers. — Economy, durability, low cost and freedom from danger can
be said to be the desirable features of boilers. The horizontal return tubular
boiler combines these features to a greater extent than any other kind. The
economy is permanent because the tubes can be both blown and scraped and
thus made as clean at any time on the fire sides as when new. On the
water sides scale can be cracked off by the use of a multiple hammer pass-
ing through the tubes. Compared with water tube boilers, another cause
244 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
of economy of the fire tube boiler is the smaller area of brickwork and
the almost entire absence of cleanoiit doors, both of which reduce air leak-
age. Water tube boilers become dirty and can never be made clean, except
by radical and expensive means. Many of the tubes become incrusted with
clinker, and in some the tubes have tiles on one side and clinker on the
other, and in either case the heating surface is all but useless. Horizontal
return tubular boilers do not short circuit the gases because the distance
from any point in a transverse line on the grate to the uptake is the same
through corresponding tubes, and the resistance to passage of gas is the
same. In water tube boilers there is much short circuiting and corre-
sponding uselessnoss of some of the heating surface.
For safety the horizontal return tubular boiler has a unique history,
for there has not been a single explosion of such a boiler when built with
butt longitudinal joints. These joints can be improved, which will render
explosions even less probable.
For size, 90-inch horizontal return tubular boilers of 400 rated horse-
power have been built, and they are perfectly successful. They have been
continuously worked to nearly double their rating with great economy. The
size can be increased to 500 horse power without disadvantage, and there is
no ordinary limit to the pressure that can be carried. The theory of the
transmission of heat shows that the resistance to its flow through steel
plates is only slightly increased by increasing their thickness, and there
should be no hesitation in making them one inch or more thick. A ninety-
eight-inch boiler for 200 pounds .pressure, with 5,000 square feet of heating
surface, is feasible and unobjectionable. Dirt on the water sides is the only
cause of trouble, and this is equally troublesome on thin plates.
For forcing, the horizontal return tubular boiler is unequalled, except
by other fire tube types, and no boiler will respond to sudden demands bet-
ter. While it makes no difference to forcing capacity, it is a matter of in-
terest that this type of boiler contains less water, in proportion to heating
surface, than any other.
The vertical fire tube boiler is more economical than the horizontal
tubular when fired properly, but it requires more skill in firing. It is more
economical because its heating surfaces keep cleaner, all parts of the tubes
are equally effective, and because there are no opportunities for air to leak
in and cool the gases. With an economizer the latter is more effective than
with boilers in brickwork, because the gases leave hotter, due, not to the
inability of vertical tubes to absorb heat, but to the gases escaping at their
normal temperature, as noted above. As usually built, these boilers have
leaky smoke boxes and covers, which neutralize this, and this practice should
be discontinued. For economy of space vertical boilers about double the
horsepower on a given floor area, compared with horizontal. An important
feature of these boilers is that they superheat the steam from twenty degrees
to forty degrees, thus causing economy of steam in engines.
OF THE UNITED STATES 245
HISTORY OF FACTORY FIRE INSURANCE
BY FREDERICK A. DOWNS
The first fire insurance companj' established in America was organ-
ized in Pennsylvania, April 13, 1752, at the instigation of Benjamin Frank-
lin, James Hamilton, then Lieutenant Governor of the Province, being the
first subscriber to its articles of agreement.
The title of this company was the "Philadelphia Contributionship For
The Insurance Of Flouses Trom Loss By Fire," commonly called the "Hand
In Hand Fire Insurance Company," due to the fact that the company placed
a seal on each house that it insured, representing four hands crossed and
clasped at the wrist.
No other fire insurance company was organized in America until 1783,
but by the close of the century there had been organized in this country ten
mutual and four stock fire insurance companies, and by 1820 this number
had increased to seventeen stock companies in New York, six in Pennsyl-
vania, two in Connecticut, and one each in Rhode Island, New Jersey and
Massachusetts.
In all of these companies the underwriting of cotton mills was looked
iipon with distrust and fear, and many of them refused absohitely to in-
sure this class of business at any price.
The rates in such companies as would insure cotton mills for limited
amounts were the highest paid for any class of property existing at that
time.
While the rates charged on cotton mills were published at from one and
three-quarter per cent to three per cent, a woolen mill was considered less
hazardous to the extent that the insurance companies were willing to in-
sure this class of property at from one per cent to one and one-quarter per
cent.
From a pamphlet on "Fire Hazards," published by Captain Wm. Jones,
Secretary of the North American Insurance Company, in 1823, is extracted
the following as applied to the insuring of cotton mills from the under-
writers' point of view :
"Cotton Manufactories: The exemption of these establishments
from conflagration depends less upon even the best mechanical safe-
guards in the construction and arrangement than upon a well-organized
system of management, combining vigilance, cleanliness, order, and disci-
pline; without these, the highest possible premium would be inadequate to
246 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES.
the risk; gunpowder itself is not so inflammable as the atmosphere of a cot-
ton mill, where the waste and dust of the staple are suffered to accumulate
from time to time among numerous lamps or candles, which may be pre-
sumed to be managed with equal negligence.''
The feeling of the underwriters in relation to the insuring of cotton
mills was particularly emphasized by an incident which occurred in Bos-
ton, ]\Iass., in 1850. The owner of what was at that time considered a
large cotton mill called on the president of one of the prosperous fire in-
surance companies in that city and asked if he insured cotton mills, to
which he replied : "Oh, yes, we insure them to burn up at a very low rate,
but we do not insure them against loss by fire at any rate."
Previous to 1835, notwithstanding that high rates and unusual and ex-
acting policy conditions were imposed upon the cotton manufacturers, no
steps had been taken to overcome the existing difficulties and provide a
means for the protection of their properties with suitable insurance at rea-
sonable cost. During the year 1835 Mr. Zachariah Allen, owner of the
Allendale Mill, at Allendale, R. I., together with a number of business as-
sociates and fellow-manufacturers, organized the Providence Manufacturers'
Mutual Fire Insurance Company, of Providence, R. I. (this title afterwards
being changed to the Manufacturers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company of
Providence, R. I.) In 1848 the Rhode Island Mutual Fire Insurance Com-
pany of Providence, R. I., was established. The object of these compa-
nies was the insuring of manufacturing and warehouse properties, and this
object was maintained except in a few isolated cases when houses and
barns were accepted. Th incorporators of these companies consisted largely
of woolen and cotton manufacturers, Mr. Allen then being engaged in the
manufacture of woolen goods at his Allendale mill. The records of the
companies show, however, that the largest proportion of the risks insured
were cotton mills.
The largest amount assumed by each company on a single risk was
$15,000, the balance being placed in such companies as could be induced to
accept it. The basis on which rates were made by these companies was the
accepting by them of about three-quarters of the rates charged by the stock
insurance companies on the same property, this being necessary on account
of the lack of suitable statistics and experience in the insuring of manu-
facturing property exclusively. The policies or contracts of indemnity were
made on the simplest form possible, it being agreed among the incorporators
that by the careful selection of their assured and the acceptance by them
of only desirable members, each member would keep faith with his asso-
ciates, and there is no record of there having been any attempt on the part
of any member insured to take advantage of the other members, which
gives evidence of the high moral hazard of the parties insured. Among the
several objects for the establishment of these companies was the avoidance
of clauses and restrictions in their policies that invariably complicated a
OF THE UNITED STATES 247
proper and equitable settlement of loss and with which almost all insurance
contracts were at that time encumbered.
The care exercised by the management in the selection of their busi-
ness and the rigid economy practised by them gave evidence early in their
history of the success of the undertaking, and which led to the organization
of the Boston Manufacturers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company in Boston,
Mass., in 1850, by Mr. James Reed, of that city, and Mr. John L. Hughes,
of Providence, R. I., Mr. Reed occupying the position of Secretary until
he resigned on account of ill health, when Mr. Edward E. Manton, of the
Rhode Island Mutual Fire Insurance Company, of Providence, R. I., be-
came the chief executive officer of the Boston company, retaining the ex-
ecutive control of the Rhode Island Mutual Fire Insurance Company and
acting in the capacity of chief adviser of the Manufacturers' Mutual Fire
Insurance Company, of Providence, R. I.
With the organization of the Boston Manufacturers' Mutual Fire In-
surance Company the underwriting under the original method was increased
to $60,000 on a single risk, by the acceptance by the Boston Company of
a maximum line ot $30,000. P'ollowing the organization of this company
other companies were organized in the following order:
Firemen's Mutual Insurance Co., Providence, R. I., 1854
Worcester Mfrs. Mutual Insurance Co., Worcester, Mass., 1855
State Mutual Fire Insurance Co., Providence, R. I., 1858
Arkwright Mutual Fire Insurance Co., Boston, Mass., i860
Blackstone Mutual Fire Insurance Co., Providence, R. I., 1868
Fall River Mfrs. Mutual Insurance Co., Fall River, Mass., 1870
Mechanics' Mutual Firo Insurance Co., Providence, R. I., 1871
What Cheer Mutual Fire Insurance Co., Providence. R. I., 1873
Enterprise Mutual Fire Insurance Co., Providence, R. I., 1874
Merchants' Mutual Fire Insurance Co., Providence, R. I.. 1874
Hope Mutual Fire Insurance Co., Providence, R. I., 1875
Cotton & Woolen Mfrs. Mutual Insurance Co., Boston, Mass., 1875
American IMutual Fire Insurance Co., . Providence, R. I., 1877
Phila. Mfrs. Mutual Fire Insurance Co., Philadelphia, Pa., 1880
Keystone Mutual Fire Insurance Co.,. Philadelphia, Pa., 1884
Rubber Mfrs. Mutual Insurance Co., Boston, Mass., 1886
Paper Mill Mutual Insurance Co., Boston, Mass., 1887
After 1887 other companies were organized in several of the other
states until, in igit, there are thirty-two (32) companies operating under
the same uniform methods and in co-operation with each other.
From the organization of the parent company in 1835, until 1878, the
sole purpose of the management seems to have been to select their risks
with care and to practise the most rigid economy, saving for their policy-
248 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
holders as much money as possible in the cost of their insurance, dis-
tributing to them upon the expiration of their policies such saving over the
losses and expenses as they were able to effect during the' period.
Each company acted independently of the other companies, although
there was a community of interest in the fact that they were underwriting
on the same property. Inspections were made about once a year by the ex-
ecutive officers, usually just prior to the expiration of their policies; other
than this, their methods ditVered in no essential respect from the other fire
insurance companies existing at that time.
In 1878 it was found that the magnitude of the business was such as
to make it impossible for the officers to inspect their risks as often as was
considered necessary, and the expense of maintaining an inspection staff of
competent men for each company was too great to be considered favorably ;
it therefore became manifest that some other and more economic method
must be adopted, as the risks required, if anything, more care and atten-
tion than formerly, due to the rapidly growing business and the increasing
hazards, brought about by new methods and labor-saving devices. It was
finally decided that by the establishment of an Inspection Department for
the joint benefit of all of the companies it could be conducted economically
and at a cost well within the moans of the several companies. An Inspec-
tion Department was, therefore, established in Boston, Mass., under the di-
rection and supervision of Mr. Wm. B. Whiting, Secretary of the Boston
Mfrs. Mutual Fire Insurance Co., a man of exceptional ability and extra-
ordinary memory, and through the efforts of this gentleman, coupled with
those of Mr. Edward E. Manton and .^Mr. Edward Atkinson, this depart-
ment was a success, both financially and in the assistance it rendered the
manufacturers in the care of their properties. Quarterly inspections were
made of each risk insured; modern safeguards were investigated and ap-
plied, and in 1880 the automatic sprinkler was adopted and every device
that would reduce the fire waste of manufacturing property was applied to
the risks insured by these several companies.
With the establishment of the Inspection Department the companies
were brought into closer association, and, before the close of the year, a
conference of the chief executive officers of the several companies was
established and meetings were held monthly, at which meetings all subjects
v;ere discussed and proper action taken pertaining to the improvement in
manufacturing properties, application of proper forms, uniformity of rates
and other conditions looking to the reduction in the cost of insurance to
the manufacturers. This conference or association w"as known as the Fac-
tory iNlutual Fire Insurance Companies, but, as this class of companies was
originally established in New England, they were very commonly known as
the New England Factory Mutual Fire Insurance Companies.
Thus was established in the history of fire insurance the single in-
stance of a system of insurance for tlie exclusive insuring of manufacturing
OF THE UNITED STATES 249
and warehouse properties, coupling the prevention of loss by fire as the
prime motive with the payment of indemnity in case of unavoidable losses
as an incident.
In the operation of these companies no commissions were paid to
agents and brokers for the securing of the business, but the companies dealt
direct with the principals ; no property was insured until after it was in-
spected and brought up to a uniform standard of construction and protec-
tion, and by the care exercised in their management the savings to the in-
sured have increased each y.^ar from an initial saving in the early history
of the companies of about twenty per cent of the premium charged, to an
average of about ninety per cent in 191 1.
In dealing more particularly with insurance on cotton manufactories,
it is to be noted that since 1835 they have been gradually brought up to a
high standard of perfection, and through the efforts of the owners of the
properties, with the assistance of the officers and inspectors of the Asso-
ciated Factory Mutual Fire Insurance Companies, their loss ratio in a
series of vears is less than that of the woolen manufactories, and from a
rate of one and three-quarters per cent to three per cent in 1835, the cost
has been reduced to about ten cents, which gives evidence that under proper
management and the adoption of proper safeguards a hazardous risk may
be made uniformly profitable to the insurance companies; thus, in the organ-
ization of these companies the cotton and woolen manufacturers were in-
strumental in establishing a system of insurance that has been of inestimable
value to the manufacturers in general during the entire period.
250 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
COTTON SEED AND ITS PRODUCTS.
BY E. M. NORRIS
The varied uses to which the seed of the cotton plant may be put, and
the commercial value of the products obtained from it, entitle it to con-
sideration in a volume which treats of the manufacture of cotton. Though
the cotton plant has been cultivated from time immemorial for its fibre,
it was not until a comparatively modern date that the oil-producing proper-
ties of its seed, the valuable qualities of its oil, and the important and
varied uses to which it could be put, were even imagined. The Chinese,
it is true, crushed the seed of their native cotton and consumed the oil
expressed from it in their primitive hand lamps, and also recognized the
fertilizing qualities of the crushed residuum probably centuries before the
discovery of America. But their knowledge was not disseminated, and
civilization owes little to it. The eighteenth century was nearing its close
when the attention of modern men was directed to the fact that cotton
seed contained a useful oil. It is stated that in the year 1783, when the
cotton industry was still in its infancy in England, a cask of cotton-seed was
brought there from the West Indies and presented to the Society of Arts,
an organization which has for its object the promotion and encouragement
of arts, manufactures and commerce, that under its auspices, experiments
might be made as to the possibility of extracting oil from the seed. This in-
tention was carried out at the mill in the city of London in the presence of
the Secretary of the Society, and the oil so obtained was used in experimental
efforts to determine the uses to which the oil might be applied, a sample of it
being preserved by the Society. In consequence of these experiments, the
Society offered gold and silver medals: the first to be bestowed upon "the
planter in any part of the British islands of the West Indies, who shall express
oil from the seed of cotton, and make from the remaining seed, hard and
dry cakes, as food for cattle," a part of the condition being that one ton
of oil should be expressed and five hundredweight of the cake obtained;
the silver medal was destined for the person manufacturing the next
largest quantity of oil and cakes, but though the offer was made in later
volumes of the Transactions of the Society, there is no record of its ever
being called upon to award the medals.
Nevertheless, a number of mills in England and France became en-
gaged in the business of expressing oil from cotton seed, imported from
India and Egypt, and so brisk a demand arose for the oil, which was
OF THE UNITED STATES 251
applied to industrial purposes, and for the crushed kernels for stock-feeding
purposes, that the mill owners made several attempts to import American
seed to supplement the supply from other sources.
The Upland seed being unsuited to their purpose, they turned their at-
tention to the smooth hulled Sea Island seed, and for some years a thriving
business was done in the exportation of Sea Island seed to Europe from
Savannah and Charleston. The rapid advance made in the process of pre-
paring cotton seed oil by both British and French, is shown by the fact
that in the Exposition of 185 1, Mr. Burns, of Edinburgh, and M. de Gemni,
of Marseilles, were awarded prizes for samples of that commodity, and the
real history of the industry may be said to date from that period.
For more than seventy years after cotton had become the most im-
portant crop in the Southern States, the seed was a wasted product, and as
the seed is, by weight, two-thirds of the cotton crop, the disposition of this
enormous amount of refuse was a rnatter of grave moment to the planter
and the ginner. The accumulations of seed about the gins were hauled to
some remote spot, there to decay, or dumped into some running stream, to
contaminate and infect the water, which, as the population increased about
these centres of industry, became a menace to the public health. Therefore,
laws were passed in Mississippi, in 1857, forbidding such disposal of the
seed under penalty (See Revised Code of Mississippi, 1857, page 207).
Other States followed this example, and tons of seed were burnt and the
ashes used as a fertilizer, and thousands of tons were piled high on worth-
less land and surrounded by strong fences, for common tradition held it
poisonous to cattle. A few adventurous planters had made use of small
rude mills and presses, and used the oil so obtained for plantation purposes.
Shingle roofs painted with cotton seed oil were common throughout the
South, remarkable preservative qualities being claimed for it. Robert
Mills, in his "Statistics of South Carolina," published in 1826, writes: "Mr.
Benjamin Waring was one of the earliest settlers of the town of Columbia.
He established the first paper, oil, and grist mills here, and expressed
from cotton seed a very good oil." In another part of his book, the
historian says: "The quantity of oil that cotton seed will yield has been
estimated at one gallon to one hundred pounds of seed, which is a very
low estimate." From this, the inference may be drawn that the knowledge
of the expression of oil from cotton seed was common prior to 1826, in
South Carolina. Rut the difficulty that had confronted the planter as to
the ginning of the lint-covered seeds of Upland cotton, before the invention
of Whitney's gin, met also the manufacturer of oil from cotton seed, as
the absorbent qualities of the seed husks made it impossible to extract more
than a small part of the oil.
The following excerpt, from the Niles Register of 1829, is the earliest
record of the practical beginnings of the cotton-seed oil industry in the
United States, and shows how the difficulty stated above was met. "Cotton-
252 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
seed yields a considerable portion of excellent oil. The difficulty of
expressing it, in consequence of the quantity and absorbing quality of the
integuments of the kernel, has been so great that heretofore no great
quantity of the oil has been made. We are happy to announce that a
highly respected gentleman of Petersburg, Va., has invented a machine
by which the seed is completely hulled and prepared for the easy expression
of its oil. The importance of this invention to the Southern country may be
appreciated from the fact that the inventor is erecting a cotton gin, and
will be shortly prepared to gin cotton for the seed only. This invention, as
we understand it, consists of a granite cylinder, revolving within convex
pieces of the same substance faced and placed in a peculiar manner. A
hopper over the stone supplies the seed ; a wire sieve under it separates
the hull from the kernel. Dropping through a current of air from a wind
fan, it is delivered clean and ready for the press. This machine will
probably rank in the country second only to Whitney's gin. About twenty-
five years ago, Dr. George Hunter, chemist and druggist of Philadelphia,
having made some experiments on the oil of cotton-seed, thought it worth
while to remove to New Orleans, where he carried two steam engines,
purchased from Oliver Evans, the one for the purpose of grinding cotton
seed. He did not find the place so well suited to his purpose as he ex-
pected, and did not set up his manufactory. Afterward, about 1818, Colonel
Oark, an ingenious inventor, made some experiments on the oil of cotton-
seed for burning in lamps. Oil of cotton-seed is selling at Providence, R. I.,
at eighty cents per gallon."
A small mill is said to have been established on an island off the
Georgia coast in 1832; and another was built in 1834, but the venture was
unsuccessful from a pecuniary standpoint and was soon abandoned. In
1847, the experiment was tried in New Orleans and again in 1852, but
these attempts were experimental and led to no definite results. As the
manufacture in France had reached the point of refining and preparing the
oil for food, Mr. Paul Aldige, of New Orleans, visited Marseilles, the chief
point of manufacture, in 1852, and having acquired much knowledge as to
the requisite processes, on his return to New Orleans in 1855, he and
others set seriously to work in the business of manufacturing oil from
cotton-seed in that city. About the same time the Union Oil Company was
established in the North, with mills at Providence, R. I., and in i860, there
were seven mills making cotton-seed oil.
The Civil War now intervened and practically stultified the infant
industry for some years in the United States ; and mills at Natchez,
New Orleans, and Mobile disappeared. The exportation of seed to Europe
had ceased, and the industry was not resumed until the reconstruction of
the South had proceeded far enough to permit of the harvesting of a normal
crop of cotton. In 1867, Colonel W. D. Mann established the Mobile
Cotton Mills, the works being the largest then in existence. A refinery,
OF THE UNITED STATES 253
soap factory and fertilizer factory were run in conjunction with it, the
capacity of the plant being three thousand gallons of oil per diem ; his
first shipment of oil to New York brought him in handsome returns, but
it glutted the market and his second shipment sold at less than half the
price of the first; seed and freight were both high, and after sinking $170,-
000 in machinery and appliances alone, he abandoned the enterprise.
General C. P. Alexander established an oil mill at Columbia, S. C, in 1869,
but, although he also set up a refinery and attempted to utilize every by-
product, he too was obliged to abandon his venture. He did much
by means of literature, which he himself prepared and disseminated, to
educate the people of the South to a realization of the valuable qualities
of oil.
The first mill in Texas was built at High Hill by Mr. Hillje, and
equipped with machinery from Germany. This mill was successful and
the pioneer's sons are still continuing the business. In 1871, there were
twenty-six oil mills in the United States which exported 547.165
gallons of cotton-seed oil. As the entire output of oil was then exported,
this amount represents the production of the mills then operating, and
statistics show that only four per cent of the seed of the cotton crop that
year (3,011,996 bales) was milled, the remainder being used as fertilizer
or allowed to rot upon waste land. But the industry was now permanently
established as a legitimate business. At the outset, the processes employed
were carefully guarded as trade secrets; nevertheless, the establishments
increased and knowledge became more general.
In 1880, there were forty-five mills, and 6,997,796 gallons of oil, valued
at $3,275,414, were exported. This represented twenty per cent of the
seed of the crop of that year. Up to this year, the production of the oil
could be definitely determined by the export statistics, but thereafter home
consumption formed a new factor in the industry. In 1890, the crop was
7,472,511 bales, and twenty-five per cent of the seed crop was used ; in
1900, of a crop of 9,645,974 bales, fifty-three per cent of the seed crop was
used in the manufacture of oil products, and 46,902,390 gallons of oil were
exported, the home consumption amounting to as much more. Up to 1885,
the oil reserved for domestic consumption had been largely employed for
the manufacture of soaps; but the brokers and dealers in the North soon
found a new outlet for it as an edible commodity, and with this new use,
the industry increased by leaps and bounds. According to the twelfth
census report, there were in 1900, 357 oil manufactories in the United
States, producing 93,325,729 gallons of oil per annum, valued at $21,390,674.
The residuum of the seed, after the oil is expressed, is made into cakes
and meal for the feeding of cattle, and this portion of the product is
valued at $16,030,576. In the manufacture of these two products 6,945
tons of seed were used.
In the report of the quantity of cotton ginned in the United States in
254 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
1902-4, it is stated that there were 618 cotton-seed oil mills in the United
States. In 1902-4, the number had increased to 704, in 1905 to 715, and in
1908 there were 848 mills in the Southern States engaged in the manufacture
of various products useful to man and beast from cotton seed. These mills
operate 2,608 presses, 2,752 gin stands, and 3,126 delinters, in addition to
fertilizers and ice plants.
Crude Products Per Ton of Cotton-Seed.
Products Pounds Value
Oil 282 $8.61
Cake and meal 713 6.48
Hulls 943 1.29
Linters 23 0.71
Waste 39
Total 2,000 $17.09
The seed goes from the gin immediately into the storehouse of the
oil mill ; it is then boiled or screened, to remove all sand and other foreign
bodies, after which it is passed through the delinter, that the remaining
short fibre or lint may be removed. This operation yields about twenty-
three pounds per ton of seed of a commodity technically termed 'iinters,"
which brings on an average three and one-tenth cents per pound. This
material is used for the making of mattresses, felt hats, pillows, and cotton
batting. In 1900, the total amount obtained was 57,272,053 pounds, valued
at $1,801,231.
The next process is the hulling, the seed being ground and the hulls
separated from the meats by a revolving screen, supplemented by other
screens which complete the process; the hulls, in the primal stages of the
industry, were used to feed the mill furnaces, but are now largely exported
as food for cattle, and are also used in the making of paper stock. For
feed, the hulls are ground and mixed with cotton-seed meal. The amount
of hulls obtained from the seed crushed in 1900 was 1,169,286 tons at an
average price of $1.29 per ton.
The meats, having been freed thoroughly from the hulls, are crushed
between rollers. This process ruptures the oil cells and largely assists the
cooking process which is for the purpose of evaporating the excess of
moisture, to heat the oily matter, and to coagulate the albuminous matter
of the seed and thereby reduce its solubility in the oil. The cooked meats
are then put into a cake former, which has just enough pressure to cause
the particles to adhere without causing the oil to exude. The cakes are
tlien wrapped in camel's hair cloths and placed at once in the hydraulic
press in compartments or boxes provided for the purpose. The cakes are
then subjected to intense hydraulic pressure, the product of this final stage
OF THE UNITED STATES 255
being crude oil and press cake. This cake is a most valuable by-product of
cotton-seed oil, amounting as it does to 725 pounds from each ton of seed.
The cake, either in its primal form or else ground into cotton-seed meal,
is used largely as a cattle food, or as a fertilizer applied directly to the
ground, or is mingled with other ingredients to produce many prepared
fertilizers, and Professor J- H. Connell, of Texas, at a meeting of the
Cotton-seed Crushers' Association at Atlanta, Ga., in 1909, made a striking
presentation of the value of cotton-seed meal as human food. Cotton-seed
meal, mingled with flour, is used in making corn and flour muffins, biscuits,
pancakes, gingerbread, dark graham bread, as well as cakes of all sorts.
Professor Connell exhibited samples of biscuits and cakes which were highly
approved by the members of the Association who tasted them. He stated
that in the near future, the cotton-seed crushers of the South would be
able to announce an actual discovery of 4,500,000 tons of a new product fit
for human consumption. For the calendar year of IQO", the exports of
cotton-seed cake and meal amounted to 590,000 tons, the average price of
the shipments for 1907 being $25.44 per ton of 2,000 pounds.
The crude oil is allowed to stand in settling tanks for a number of
hours, and is then ready for the refining process. The oil varies largely
in color and quality, which depends greatly upon the quality of the seed and
the localities from which it comes. It ranges from a light brown to a deep
black. The oil obtained from the first refining process is known to com-
merce as "summer yellow oil ;"' this, when filtered with Fuller's earth, yields
"summer white oil" from which is obtained "compound lard" and cottolene.
"Winter yellow oil" is obtained by chilling "summer yellow oil" and
separating the stearin, which latter product is utilized in the making of
"butter, and salad oils" and candles. "Miners' oil" is a white oil obtained
from "summer yellow" by the use of sulphuric acid, and is used in miners'
lamps.
The average yield of crude oil from a ton of cotton-seed is thirty-
seven and sixth-tenths gallons, or 282 pounds, but no doubt with the im-
provements constantly being initiated in the processes of expressing the oil
the maximum amount of fifty-one gallons to the ton will be universally
obtained.
The phenomenal growth of the cotton-seed industry is largely due to
the vast improvements that have been made in the methods of and ap-
pliances for refining cotton-seed oil, which render a much greater amount
of fine oil available for the various industries in which it is used.
During the early years of the industry, the oil was mostly exported
to be used in soap making, but a surplusage of oil in 1879, when the price
per gallon dropped to twenty-three and nine-tenths cents, caused the
brokers to urge it into other channels; it was found that it could be
combined with beef fat as a substitute for lard; that it could be combined
with other substances in the manufacture of olemargarine (in 1900, 11,-
2S6 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
818,921 pounds of cotton-seed oil were used in this industry alone)
and other artificial butters; with lard and also stearine, it makes "com-
pound" lard; white cottolene is a mixture of oleo-stearine and specially
prepared cotton-seed oil. It is largely used in all these forms by bakers
and cooks, and is recognized by chemists and physicians as a high-class
food product.
Though cotton-seed oil lacks the peculiar flavor of olive oil, it has
come into competition with that article. It was long ago conceded by
expert olive oil manufacturers abroad that an admixture of one-third
cotton-seed oil with two-thirds olive oil could not be detected, and that it
was as pure and wholesome as the best olive oil ; it is, therefore, largely
used as an adulterant in what purports to be pure olive oil. Italy, feeling
one of her chief industries menaced, sought by a prohibitory tax to exclude
the imports of cotton-seed oil ; which measure apparently did not have the
deterrent effect intended, for the exports of cotton-seed oil from the United
States have grown larger year by year.
Until about eight years ago, the producers of crude oil depended
largely on Eastern and Western refiners for their home markets, about half
of the oil being exported; but in 1900, a large number of crude oil mills
were purchased by Southern refineries, and thereafter ensued an increased
output of the finished products and an increased domestic demand for
those products.
There is no reason why the South should not monopolize the manu-
facture of the best refined cotton-seed oil for edible purposes. Since
cotton-seed is liable to depreciate if kept too long or not properly kept, it is
evident that the Southern refiner who takes the seed direct from the gin
and in his crude mill prepares the seed carefully and speedily for the final
refining processes, all on the same premises, has a distinct advantage over
his foreign rival, who must use seed that has lain long since it was
harvested, and been exposed to various climatic influences. Processes are
now being sought which, as well as extracting the twenty per cent of oil
now left in the cakes, will render the oil more easily refinable, with less
loss. By the means under consideration, it is hoped to recover at least
ninety-nine per cent of the oil contained in the seed, and the meal is
rendered more valuable as cattle food, because of an increase of ammonia.
It is felt that the time will come when all the cotton-seed produced in the
South, except that required for planting the next crop, will pass into her
own mills and refineries, while the South, having at her command a limitless
supply of the best fattening food in the world will become a great cattle-
raising country.
Cotton-seed oil is used for an infinity of purposes ; the miner, delving
deep in the bowels of the earth uses it in the lamp that lights his labors,
on account of its non-explosive properties ; and the stately cathedrals of
Europe receive their "dim religious light" from the same source. The
OF THE UNITED STATES 257
electrician uses it under certain conditions for insulation ; it is used as a
tempering oil and for lubricating heavy machinery, for mixing putty, and
to a slight extent for mixing paint. Owing to the extremely low price of
cotton-seed oil as compared with animal fats, it is largely used by manu-
facturers of soaps and soap powders both here and abroad. The refining
process leaves a residuum amounting to ten per cent of the crude oil ; this
substance is known as soap stock, or "foots," and is utilized for making
wool-scouring soaps and cheap grades of laundry soaps ; also glycerine,
candle stock, olein, still pitch, etc., the list being too large to insert here.
In the early days of the industry, most of the oil was exported to
foreign countries ; but the domestic use of it has greatly increased during
the past decade, so that while in 1899 the quantity of cotton-seed oil exported
during the calendar year amounted to fifty-four per cent of the production;
the quantity of oil exported during the calendar year 1909 amounted to only
twenty-nine per cent of the quantity returned as produced at the 1909 census.
Notwithstanding this fact the value of the exports during decade 1889 to
1909 increased fifty-seven per cent.
The rapid advance of the industry is attributed mainly to the develop-
ment of superior methods in the refining processes ; while the home demand
has greatly profited by the high price of hog products, a great percentage
of cotton-seed oil being used in lard compound.
The States showing the greatest development in the industry, as in-
dicated by the actual increase in number of establishments, are: Georgia,
where the number has grown from forty-six in 1899 to 145 in 1909, or 215
per cent; Texas, from 102 to 191, or eighty-seven per cent; and South
Carolina, from forty-eight to 102, or 113 per cent. Texas leads in total
value of products, with twenty-three per cent of the output of the whole
country; Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Alabama follow in
order.
The largest importing countries of American oil, are, in the order ol
their importance: The Netherlands, Italy, Mexico, United Kingdom,
France, and Germany. While Germany and Denmark are the largest
consumers of cake and meal for stock feeding purposes.
The total number of establishments in 1909 were 809, an increase of
twenty-seven per cent over those of 1899; while the total value of pro-
duction had risen from $42,412,000 in 1899 to $107,538,000 in 1909.
2S8 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
SAMUEL SLATER.
Samuel Slater, who has not inaptly been styled the father of cotton
manufacturing in the United States, was born at Belper, Derbyshire, Eng-
land, June 9, 1768; he was the fifth son of William and Mary (Fox) Slater.
His father, as the descendant of a long line of yeoman ancestry, inherited an
estate entitled "Holly House Farm," and while cultivating his own lands
followed the business of a timber merchant. He owned other real estate;
and that he was a man of substantial means is evidenced by the fact that
he bequeathed a comfortable portion to each of his ten children: the eldest
son of course inheriting the estate, where his descendants now live.
Samuel Slater received an excellent commercial education, under a
noted schoolmaster of those parts named Jackson. He made rapid progress
in his studies, and was particularly proficient in mathematics.
At the age of fourteen, his father placed Samuel with his close friend,
Mr. Jedediah Strutt, that he might after trial, should the arrangement be
agreeable to both parties, be apprenticed to learn the "art of cotton manu-
facturing." Mr. William Slater died in 1782 before the indentures were
made out, and in 1783 Samuel Slater bound himself apprentice for six
and a half years to Mr. Jedediah Strutt. This arrangement did not mean
that he was bound apprentice to become a weaver or an operative of any
particular kind ; but it meant that as a son of a man of means and position he
was to learn the "art of cotton manufacturing" in all its branches with a
view to engaging in that business himself. Mr. Jedediah Strutt was
eminently qualified to instruct him. A successful manufacturer himself,
he was possessed of much mechanical genius and had invented a machine for
the weaving of ribbed stockings He was also the patentee of several
inventions of an entirely dififerent character. He was a patron and later
in partnership with Richard Arkwright. and suggested several improve-
ments in Arkwright's spinning frame, which were incorporated in it before
it was patented. Strutt and Arkwright built mills at Cromford, at Belper
and at Alilford, and when the partnership was dissolved in 1881, Mr. Strutt
retained the Belper and Mil ford factories, where the subject of this
sketch passed his apprenticeship. Samuel was diligent in his application
to business and passed much of his spare time among the machinery.
After the expiration of three years he was appointed overseer in the mill,
being then barely seventeen. He also became an expert machinist in these
mills where all that was latest and best in cotton manufacturing machinery
was in motion, and where improvements were constantly being made.
OF THE UNITED STATES 259
Owing to the contention then taking place in regard to patent rights he
had an opportunity of gaining a knowledge of those also, and a great
insight into the laws concerning them.
His term of indenture having duly expired, he was employed by ]\Ir.
Strutt to oversee the construction of some new works and the setting up
of the machinery, in addition to his duties as overseer in the mill. The
experience he thus gained was of incalculable service to him when, in the
new world, he built and equipped his first mill.
During the latter years of his apprenticeship, his active and ambitious
mind had dwelt much upon the possibilities of the future for him, and
being apprehensive that the cotton business would be overdone in England,
his attention was caught by an article in an English newspaper, mentioning
the inducements held out by the legislatures of Pennsylvania and other
States to encourage the introduction of improved machinery for the manu-
facture of cotton, and in particular a bounty offered by the Pennsylvania
legislature for "a roll for jennies," which convinced him that America
must be destitute of much of the machinery with which he had such full
acquaintance, and this induced him to try his fortunes in the Western
hemisphere.
He hastened home for some clothing, started to London and took his
passage, disguised as a farm laborer. He was considerably handicapped
at the outset, for he not only did not dare to embark as a machinist, but he
was compelled to refrain from carrying with him the smallest drawing or
specification concerning machinery, owing to the strict laws regarding its
exportation from England. He therefore left his native land without in-
forming anyone of his departure, and in due time he reached New York,
where he obtained employment in a cotton factory on Vesey street, operated
by the New York Manufacturing Society, then newly organized. He
very quickly ascertained that here was no field for his efforts, and hearing
of the experiments then being made at Providence, he wrote to Moses
Brown, the wealthy retired merchant who had initiated them, the following
letter:
New York, December 2, 1789.
Sir: A few days ago I was informed that you wanted a manager of
cotton spinning, etc., in which business I flatter myself that I can give the
greatest satisfaction, in making machinery, making good yarn, either for
stockings or twist, as any that is made in England, as I have had oppor-
tunity and an oversight of Sir Richard Arkwright's works, and in Mr.
Strutt's mills upwards of eight years. If you are not provided for, should
be glad to serve you; though I am in the New York Manufactory, and
have been for three weeks since I arrived from England, but we have but
one card, two machines, two spinning jennies, which I think are not worth
using. My encouragement is pretty good, but should much rather have
the care of the perpetual carding and spinning. My intention is to erect
26o TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
a perpetual card and spinning. [Meaning the Arkwright patents.] If you
please to drop a line respecting the amount of encouragement you wish to
give, by favor of Captain Brown, you will much oblige, sir, your most
obedient humble servant, Samuel Slater.
N. B. — Please to direct to me at No. 37 Golden Hill, New York.
To this letter, he received an answer informing him that experiments
had been made in water spinning, but with no success ; and Mr. Brown
invited him to go to Providence, "and have the credit as well as the
advantage of perfecting the first water mill in America.''
Mr. Slater accepted this invitation and went to Providence, where he
assured Mr. Brown he could do all he had promised in his letter. He
visited Pawtucket to inspect the machinery there, and pronounced it
worthless. It was then proposed that Mr. Slater should erect the series of
machines called the Arkwright patents, which he refused to do unless he
were provided with a skilled worker in wood, who should be put under
bonds not to steal the patterns, or disclose the nature of the works. "Under
my proposals," he said, "if I do not make as good yarn as they do in
England, I will have nothing for my services, but will throw the whole of
what I have attempted over the bridge."
Mr. Slater at once began the construction of new machines on the
Arkwright principles, a work attended with immense difficulty, owing to
the fact that he was obliged to rely upon his own mechanical knowledge
and his memory for the reproduction of the most delicate and intricate
machines. There were at the outset many disappointments and setbacks,
and the first frame of twenty-four spindles was much longer in course of
construction than had been anticipated, owing to the difficulty of obtaining
cards and even tools to work with ; all of which had to be made by Mr.
Slater himself or under his directions. The card clothing was obtained
from Phinney Earle of Leicester, who manufactured hand cards, but when
applied to the machines it failed to work properly, the teeth of the cards not
having the right angle or inclination, Mr. Slater's instructions for remedy-
ing this defect having been followed by Mr. Earle, it was overcome and
the machine worked effectively.
In order to give a fair understanding of the immense service rendered
to the cotton industry of the United States by Mr. Slater in accomplishing
this work, it is necessary that we should describe the status of the
manufacture at that time, and the experiments that had been made to
better it.
About 1788, Daniel Anthony, Andrew Dexter and Lewis Peck, of-
Providence, had formed a partnership to make what was then called home-
spun cloth. The idea at first was to spin by hand and manufacture jeans
with linen warp and cotton filling, but learning that Mr. Orr, of Bridge-
water, Mass., had imported models of machinery from England, Daniel
OF THE UNITED STATES 261
Anthony went to Bridgewater and obtained a draft of the model which was
very imperfect, and not in operation. They also built a machine called a
jenny, a model of which had been brought from England into Beverly,
Mass., by a man named Somers. This jenny had twenty-eight spindles
and was operated in the market house at Providence. They then made a
carding machine, and subsequently proceeded to build a spinning frame
from the draft obtained at Bridgewater, but it was a failure, being too
cumbersome to work by hand and too imperfect to be worked by water.
This was the machinery bought by Moses Brown and condemned by
Samuel Slater on his arrival in Providence. But notwithstanding the
difficulties attending his experiments, and his own depression at the con-
stant failure of his own efforts towards perfection, Mr. Slater evinced so
great an ability for this task in the first three months, and there seemed
such good prospect of ultimate success, that it was proposed he should enter
into partnership with Messrs. Almy and Brown. On the fifth of April,
1790, a contract was drawn up between William Almy and Smith Brown
of the one part, and Samuel Slater of the other part, that the first named
parties should furnish capital and materials for the construction of two
carding machines, a drawing and roving frame, and a spinning frame to
the capacity of one hundred spindles, and capital for the carrying on of the
manufacture after the completion of the machines; while the last named
was to receive one-half the profits of the business and to own one-half
the machinery as compensation for his services. Messrs. Almy and Brown
were to have a commission of two and one-half per cent for the purchase
of stock, and four per cent for selling yarn, and Mr. Slater was to
be charged half the expense incurred in the purchase and construction
of the machines and for the amounts advanced for his support while
developing and prosecuting the business. The style of the firm formed
under this contract was Almy, Brown and Slater.
Mr. Slater's new machines were set up in the fulling mill of Ezekiel
Carpenter, which stood near the West end of Pawtucket Bridge, and the
day on which they were first set in motion marked a new era in manufactur-
ing in New England. The first yarn was probably produced in the autumn
of 1790. But the first record of the employment of operatives and the
keeping of their time was made on Monday, Dec. 20, 1790.
The success of the enterprise was such that cotton yarn was almost
immediately produced, which was fully equal in quality to that of the same
grade produced in England, and the firm decided to build a mill especially
adapted to cotton spinning. For this purpose, a mill privilege on the
Blackstone River, some twenty rods above the Pawtucket Bridge, was
purchased Nov. 12, 1791, and early in 1793 the building was begun. The
building still stands, though many alterations and additions have been
made, and, though it is styled the "Old Slater Mill," as seen from the
262 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
street, it does not give a very correct idea of the mill as it was when Samuel
Slater was one of its owners.
Hardly was the mill running on a substantial basis, with every promise
of unlimited prosperity and success, than dissatisfaction arose among some
of the help employed, and several of these employees left and erected for
themselves a small mill, the patterns of the machinery were copied by them,
and new machines were at diverj times and places set in motion by persons
drawing their knowledge from Slater's mill in Pawtucket, so that in 1812,
more than one hundred factories, operating eighty thousand spindles, had
been established in different parts of the country.
The business of Almy, Brown & Slater was for several years confined
to cotton spinning, the yarns made by them being sold in the vicinity of
the mills, but as similar factories became numerous, a market was sought
further afield, and Almy & Brown became the selling agents, the manufac-
uring being done by Almy, Brown & Slater.
In 1793, Mr. Slater sold the first cotton sewing thread manufactured
in the United States. He was showing his wife some warp spun from
cotton upon his new machinery, which was then being introduced to
take the place of the linen warp which had heretofore been used with
cotton filling, when in testing its strength and fineness, she suggested that
it might prove an available substitute for the linen sewing tliread then in
use, and Mr. Slater successfully adopted her suggestion.
Early in 1799, Mr. Slater began the erection of a mill on land owned
by him in Rehoboth, and by a transfer of property, later admitted Oziel
Wilkinson, Timothy Greene and William Wilkinson into the venture, and
tlie business was carried on under the style of Samuel Slater & Co. This
factory was known as the White Mill. In 1819 (Jan. 30) Mr. Slater sold
his interest in the business.
When the first cotton factory established by Samuel Slater had been
successfully operated for some ten years, desiring the co-operation of his
younger brother John, he invited him to come to America. On his arrival
in Pawtucket in 1803, he entered the service of Almy, Brown & Slater,
and two years later, when the firm decided to start cotton manufacturing in
some new location, Mr. John Slater made several prospecting journeys,
during which he discovered in the northern part of the town of Smithfield,
R. I., the Monhegan, now the branch river, which afforded an exceptionally
fine water privilege. Three purchases of land were made, comprising in all
more than one hundred and fifty acres, and including the control of the
stream. A partnership was formed by William .\lmy, Obadiah Brown,
Samuel Slater and John Slater, under the style of Almy, Brown & Slaters,
and the building of the mills was at once begun and completed late in 1806,
the machinery being started in 1807. This mill was equipped with all the ■
latest improvements in machinery brought by Mr. John Slater from
England, and in September he removed tliere as superintendent of the
OF THE UNITED STATES 263
concern, which began spinning in the following spring, and was managed
by him for upwards of fifty years. Samuel Slater himself resided during
part of his life at Slatersville, a village which was built mainly by his own
and his brother's efforts. The establishment there was originally owned
by the four partners in equal shares, but eventually became the sole
property of John Slater and the heirs of his brother.
In 1808, Samuel Slater & Co., in addition to their output of spinning
products, advertised "checks, stripes and tickings of superfine and middling
qualities."
In 181 1, Mr. Slater was informed by one of his clerks, Bela Tiffany by
name, of the existence of a water-power in what is now Webster, Mass.
Mr. Tiffany lived in Brimfield, Mass., and passed through this section on
his journeys to and from Pawtucket, and upon mentioning the fact of the
water-power to Mr. Slater, the latter suggested that he stop oft' and
ascertain its situation and quality. In a letter of May 27, 181 1, the young
man wrote informing Mr. Slater, that in an almost benighted region, four
miles from Oxford, three miles from Dudley, and six and a half miles from
Thompson, Connecticut, he had found about thirteen acres of land with
certain buildings thereon and a "waterfall suflRcient for all practicable pur-
poses." Before the close of the year 1812, about two hundred and sixty
more acres had been added, mills were at once erected, and in 1813,
Slater and Tiffany (Mr. Tiffany was now a partner with one-sixth interest)
began the manufacture of cotton yarn. At the same time, a dyeing and
bleaching house was erected and placed under the management of John
Tyson, who had an interest in the business until his death in 1821, when it
passed into the hands of Mr. Slater. Other purchases of land were made
by Slater & Tiffany during 1814-15, but in November, 1816, during the de-
pressed condition of manufactures and the financial stress occasioned by the
war of 1812, Mr. Tiffany sold his interest to Mr. Slater. During the war,
the company had engaged in the manufacture of woolen cloth under the
superintendence of Edward Howard, a Yorkshire man, and through his
influence a new location was made on French River, where a property of
twelve thousand dollars was bought, and Mr. Howard in 1822 conveyed
half his interest to Mr. Slater.
Further purchases of land were made on French River, amounting to
more than five hundred acres between 1822-24. In 1823, Mr. Slater pur-
chased the cotton mills of Braman, Benedict & Waters at what is now the
North Village of Webster. The several villages to which these manufactur-
ing interests afforded nurture, with some additional territory taken from the
towns of Dudley and Oxford, were through Mr. Slater's influence incor-
porated as the town of Webster, named in honor of the great statesman,
of whom Mr. Slater was an ardent admirer.
In 1823, on the tenth of July, Samuel Slater, with his brother John,
bought the cotton mills at Jewett City, Conn., which plant was operated by
264 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
the Jewett City Manufacturing Co., the enterprise proving successful under
the Slater management. July 22), 1831, Samuel Slater conveyed his interest
in this property to his brother John, who from that time until his death
owned and operated the mills.
In May, 1826, Samuel Slater became the owner of a half interest in
the Amoskeag Village Mills, N. H., his partners being Larned Pitcher of
Seekonk, Mass., and Ira Gay, of Dunstable N. H. and in December of the
same year, Messrs. Slater, Pitcher and Gay with Oliver Dean, of Medway,
Mass., Lyman Tiffany, of Ro.xbury, Mass., and Willard Sayles, of Boston,
Mass., entered into partnership under the firm name of the Amoskeag
Manufacturing Company, and operated the two mills until July i, 1831,
when a charter of incorporation was granted by the New Hampshire
legislature, under the same name, the partners conveying their interest to
the company and receiving shares in return. Mr. Slater was a stockholder
in this company imtil his death.
In 1829, Mr. Slater conveyed his interest in the Slatersville Mills to
his partners, but he repurchased it in 1832, and with it, in, partnership wrtti
his brother John, he bought the interests of the other partners, after which
time the mills at Slatersville were operated by the firm of S. & J. Slater.
On August 12, 1829, the partnership of Almy, Brown & Slater, at Paw-
tucket, was dissolved, Mr. Slater selling his interest to his partners.
In 1829, Mr. Slater became sole proprietor of the woolen mill in
Webster, which up to that time he had carried on in partnership with ]\Ir.
Howard. In 1830, he became the proprietor of the Providence Steam
Cotton Mill, which had been erected some years before, largely with capital
furnished by him, and also of the mills at Wilkinsonville, Mass., which had
been built in 1823 by David Wilkinson, who became insolvent in 1829, and
of whom he was the largest creditor. His interest in these mills descended
to his heirs.
Though for more than twenty years after coming to this country he
still had labored for sixteen hours a day, Mr. Slater found time and thought
for those in his employ. On the establishment of the old mill in Pawtucket,
he introduced such rules and regulations as he thought expedient for the
enforcement of order and regularity, and also opened Sunday schools after
the manner of those established by Mr. Raikes in England, for the
instruction of the young people employed in the mills ; in addition to these,
day schools were promoted by Mr. Slater at all of the manufactories in
which he was interested, in some cases the teachers' salaries being paid by
Mr. Slater himself, and his relations with his employees were cordial and
pleasant. He took a paternal and. kindly interest in their welfare, which
was extended to their social and domestic concerns, and to his care and
effort for a period extending over forty years, was due the relatively
superior condition of the manufacturing villages of Rhode Island in their
moral and social aspects as compared with similar manufacturing villages
<:=^<i'-z<--,
a^
OF THE UNITED STATES 265
of that time in Great Britain. He was especially winning and genial with
youth and children, and his paternal relations with his own children were
peculiarly tender.
His ideas were broad, far-reaching and philosophical, and he deserved
in an eminent degree the place he holds in New England as the one who
gave direction and impetus to the movement which early in the nineteenth
century placed the United States on a manufacturing eminence, and opened
out to her, in the textile industries, possibilities that are still unlimited.
Mr. Slater was several times honored by the thanks and appreciation of the
nation, formally expressed by a unanimous vote in Congress for the ines-
timable benefits he had conferred in fostering the manufactures of the infant
republic. In person he was tall and well proportioned, of light complexion,
ruddy countenance, regular features and intellectual expression.
He was a citizen of Pawtucket up to the time of his death, though his
later years were passed mostly in the mansion he had built at East Webster.
Mr. Slater married, shortly after he had settled in Providence, Hannah,
daughter of Mr. Oziel Wilkinson, with whom he was associated in business.
The marriage took place Oct. 2, 1791, and of it were born nine children:
William, born Aug. 31, 1796, died Jan. 31, 1801 ; Elizabeth, born Nov. 15,
1798, died Nov. 4, 1801 ; Mary, born Sept. 28, 1801, died Aug. 19, 1803;
Samuel, born Sept. 28, 1802, died July 14, 1821 ; George Basset, born Feb.
12, 1804, died Nov. 15, 1843; John, born May 23, 1805, died Jan. 23, 1838;
Horatio Nelson, born March 5, 1808, died Aug., 1888; William, born Oct.
15, 1809, died Sept., 1825; Thomas Graham, born Sept. 19, 1812. died
Sept., 1844.
Mrs. Slater died, aged thirty-eight, soon after the birth of her youngest
child, and Nov. 21, 1817, Mr. Slater married Esther, widow of Robert
Parkinson, and she survived him. Samuel Slater died at Webster, Mass.,
April 21, 1835, in his sixty-seventh year.
AUGUSTUS LOWELL.
Augustus Lowell was born in Boston, Mass., Jan. 15, 1830. He was
the son of John Amory and Elizabeth (Putnam) Lowell. Augustus Lowell
passed his boyhood in Roxbury, attended the Boston Latin School, where
he was prepared for college, and was graduated from Harvard in the
Class of 1850. He travelled in Europe, visiting England, France, Germany
and Switzerland, and, on returning to Boston, found a position in the
counting room of BuUard & Lee, East India merchants, where he re-
mained from 1852 to 1853. He then was sent to Lowell (which place
was named after his great-uncle, Francis Cabot Lowell) to obtain a prac-
266 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
tical knowledge of the business of cotton manufacturing, and, after spending
a year in the mills there, he returned to Boston and was employed in the
office of J. M. Beebe, Morgan 8i Co. He was almost constantly officially
connected with the cotton mills at Lowell and Lawrence, and was also
engaged in the East India trade in partnership with Franklin H. Story.
With his wife and family he visited Europe, 1864-66, tarrying for two and
a half years on account of Mrs. Lowell's health. Returning to. Boston
in 1866, he continued the care of the cotton manufacturing interests and
assumed the management of numerous trusts. In 1875 he was chosen
treasurer of the Boott Cotton Mills, an office which he held for eleven
years, and about the same date was elected to succeed his father on the
board of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company. Of the
Provident Institution for Savings he was likewise made a member, and
eventually became its president, and at this date also began his long career
upon the board of the Boston Gaslight Company. He was also treasurer
of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, June 20 to October 29, 1877;
president of the Massachusetts Cotton Mills; of the Massachusetts Mills,
in Georgia ; of the Pacific Mills ; of the Merrimack Manufacturing Com-
pany, 1887-8 and 1892, to death; of the Boott Cotton Mills; of the Lowell
Bleachery; of the Lowell Machine Shop; of the Glendon Iron Company, and
a director of the Everett Mills ; of the Middlesex Company ; of the
Lawrence Mills; of the Lowell Manufacturing Company; of the Suffolk
National Bank; of the Cranberry Iron Company; of the Plymouth Cordage
Company, and of the Union Trust Company of New York, taking a leading
part in the direction of all the companies with which he was associated.
Aside from these widely varying business interests, Mr. Lowfell took an
active interest in matters affecting the public welfare. For many years he
was a trustee of the Boston Eye and Ear Infirmary, and participated
actively in its management. He followed his father as trustee of the Lowell
Institute and did much for its prosperity : and he largely shaped the policy
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a member of the corpora-
tion from 1873 to 1883, "iifl ■IS a member of its executive committee from
1883 to 1901. He was made a member of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences in 1886, of which he was also treasurer and then vice-president.
He was also a member of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science from 1898; of the Rfass-achusetts Historical Society in 1900; of
the Colonial Society of Massachusetts from 1898; ex-officio, he was a
trustee of the Boston Art Museum for twenty years and a trustee of the
Lowell Textile School from 1897 to the time of his death. Mr. Lowell's
son, Mr. Percival Lowell, wrote a memoir of him which was published
in the "Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,"
Vol. xxxvii, from which we quote the following as of special interest :
"Tliree qualities he possessed to an unusual degree — will, ability and
integrity. He was noted for his determination. To his lot, in consequence,
OF THE UNITED STATES 267
fell many necessary and thankless tasks. He likewise escaped many empty
honors. For where he went, he worked. No one ever thought of pre-
ferring him to a post merely honoris causa. For people knew that in
getting him they got not a figurehead, but a man who was certain to make
himself felt ; not because he tried to do so, but because it was in him to do it."
Mr. Lowell married, June i, 1854, Katharine Bigelow, .seventh and
youngest child of the Hon. Abbott (1792-1855) and Katherine (Bigelow)
Lawrence, and their children were: Percival Lowell, born in Boston,
March 13, 1855, astronomer; Abbott Lawrence Lowell, born in Boston, De-
cember 13, 1856; elected president of Harvard in 1909; Katharine Lowell,
born in Boston, November 27, 1858, married Alfred Roosevelt, who died
in 1891, and, secondly, November 24, 1902, Thomas James Bowlker; Eliza-
beth Lowell, born in Boston, February 2, 1862, married June 9, 1888,
William Lowell Putnam, lawyer, of Boston ; Roger Lowell, born in Boston,
February 2, 1862, died August 31, 1863; May Lowell, born May i, I'S/O,
died same day ; Amy Lowell, born in Brookline, February 9, 1874. Mr.
Lowell died at his home in Brookline, Mass., June 22, 1901.
FRANCIS CABOT LOWELL.
Francis Cabot Lowell was born in Newburyport, Mass., April 7,
1775. He was the son of Judge John and Susanna (Cabot) Lowell, grand-
son of the Rev. John and Sarah (Champney) Lowell and of Francis and
Mary (Fitch) Cabot, and a descendant of Percival Lowell, who came from
Bristol, England, in 1639, and settled in Newbury, Mass.
Francis Cabot Lowell was graduated from Harvard, A. B. 1793 and
M. A. 1796. He then engaged in mercantile pursuits in which he was
remarkably successful. In 1810 the condition of his health induced him
to visit England. On his return to America, shortly after the commence-
ment of the War of 1812, he, with his brother-in-law, Patrick Tracy
Jackson, undertook the manufacture of cotton on what was then a large
scale. Unable to obtain a power loom, such as was then in use in Eng-
land, Mr. Low:€ll and Mr. Jackson spent the winter of 1812-13 in the
construction of such a loom, in which they were eminently successful, and
immediately formed the Boston Manufacturing Company with an authorized
capital of $400,000. Mr. Nathan Appleton was associated with Mr. Lowell
and Mr. Jackson in this venture, and a mill was immediately built at
Waltham, Mass. In the mean time, the joint inventors were busily engaged
in perfecting this loom, for which they obtained a patent February 23,
1815. A number of looms had been placed in the Waltham Mill, and Mr.
Lowell, unable to obtain the requisite supply of yarn of a uniform quality,
268 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
established there also a spinning mill of 1700 spindles, and thus the first
factory making finished cloth from the raw cotton was established.
The close of the War of 1S12, in iSi^, however, had a very injurious
effect on the cotton industry of New England, and when Mr. Lowell, in
company with Mr. Appleton, visited the mills in Rhode Island, they found
the owners clamorous for a very high tariff. In 1816 Mr. Lowell went
to Washington to aid in procuring L^uch a tariff as would protect New
England cotton mills, but he found the representative and senators in
Congress from these states hostile to his scheme on account of the op-
position offered by the merchants largely engaged in the carrying trade
with the East Indies, who dealt largely in cotton cloth manufactured in
the East. Mr. Lowell therefore turned to the members from the Soutfiern
States, and through them obtained a minimum duty of six and one-quarter
cents per square yard, which tariff set the spindles and looms of New
England in motion again. Thus was Mr. Lowell mainly instrumental in the
permanent establishment of the cotton industry in New England.
After his death his brother-in-law, Patrick Tracy Jackson, purchased
a section of Chelmsford, and, with John Amory Lowell, located mills there,
and the new manufacturing centre for Northern Massachusetts became
known as Lowell, in commemoration of Francis Cabot Lowell, the town
being incorporated in 1826.
Mr. Lowell married Hannah, daughter of the Hon. Jonathan and
Hannah (Tracy) Jackson, October 31, 1798, and had three sons and one
daughter. His son John left $250,000 for a course of lectures which
resulted in the founding of the Lowell Institute in 1836. Francis Cabot
Lowell died in Boston, Mass., August to, 1817.
JOHN AMORY LOWELL.
John Amory Lowell was born in Boston, Mass., Nov. 11, 1798. He
was the son of John (1769-1840) and Rebecca (daughter of John and
Katharine Greene Amory) Lowell and grandson of John and Sarah Hig-
ginson Lowell.
John Amory Lowell was graduated from Harvard, A. B. 1815, A. M.
1818, and received his business education in the house of Kirk Boott &
Sons, to whose business he succeeded in partnership with the eldest son,
Mr. John Kirk Boott. In 1827 he was treasurer of the Boston Manufac-
turing Company, at Waltham, and in 1835 built the Boott Mill at Lowell,
and was treasurer of the Boott corporation for thirteen years and president
and director up to the time of his death.
In 1839 '1^ '^"''^ ^^^ Massachusetts Mills, at Lowell, of which he was
OF THE UNITED STATES 269
treasurer from its inception to 1848, and a director throughout his life.
From 1871-77, he was president of the Pacific Mills, and was also a di-
rector of that corporation. He was associated with Abbott Lawrence and
others in the founding of the Essex Company at Lawrence. He was also
a director of the Lowell Machine Shop, of the Lake Company, and for
fifty-nine years a director of the Suffolk Bank, Boston, in which connec-
tion he originated the system of redemption of country bank notes.
From Harvard, Mr. Lowell received the honorary degree of LL.D. in
185 1. He was a Fellow of Harvard College, 1837-77, member of the
Linnean Society of London, England, Fellow of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences and member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. He
was a member of the convention that revised the State Constitution in 1853,
and was connected with various benevolent and literary associations. Under
the will of John Lowell, Jr., he was sole trustee of the Lowell Institute for
forty years, and as such was responsible for its founding and development
and for the institution of its lecture courses, its free drawing school, its
lectures for advanced classes in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
its courses of instruction in science for the teachers of Boston, and the
Lowell School of Practical Design, established in 1872.
He married in Boston, Feb. 14, 1822, Susan Cabot, second child of
Francis Cabot and Hannah (Jackson) Lowell. She died at Cambridge,
Mass., August 15, 1827, and he married secondly, April 2, 1829, Elizabeth
Putnam, daughter of Hon. Samuel and Sarah (GooU) Putnam, of Salem,
Mass., and had one son, Augustus Lowell, born Jan. 15, 1830.
John Amory Lowell died in Boston, Mass., Oct. 31, 1881.
AMOS ADAMS LAWRENCE.
Amos Adams Lawrence was born in Boston, Mass., July 31, 1814;
son of Amos and Sarah (Richards) Lawrence; grandson of Samuel and
Susanna (Parker) Lawrence, of Groton, and of Giles and Sarah (Adams)
Richards, of Dedham ; great-grandson of Captain Amos and Abigail
(Abbott) Lawrence, of the Rev. Amos and Elizabeth (Prentiss) Adams,
of William and Sarah (Richardson) Parker, of Groton, and of Abigail
and Hulda (Hopkins) Richards, of Waterbury. His first ancestors in
America included John and Elizabeth Lawrence, Watertown, Massachu-
setts Bay Colony, 1635, and Groton, 1662; Thomas Richards (1600-1639),
of Hartford Colony, and Henry and Elizabeth (Paine) Adams, Medfield.
Massachusetts. Amos Lawrence (1786-1852) was a member of the firm of
A. & A. Lawrence, extensive promoters of the early woolen and cotton mill
enterprise of New England.
2/0 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
The subject of this sketch, Amos Adams Lawrence, was prepared for
college in Boston, and at Franklin Academy, North Adams, and was grad-
uated from Harvard, A. E. 1835, A. M. 1838; was treasurer of the
Corporation of ITarvard College, 1857-62, and an overseer, 1879-85. His
business career began in 1835 as a clerk in the dry goods commission house
of Almy Patterson & Co., of Boston, in 1S35 ; commission merchant on his
own account, 1836-9; member of the commission firm of Mason & Law-
rence, 1843-6, and of Lawrence & Co., 1846-86. He was president of the
Cocheco Cotton i\lanufacturing Company, East Rochester, N. H., and
treasurer of the Salmon Falls Manufacturing Company, Salmon Falls, N.
H., the firm of Lawrence & Co. being the selling agents for these mills,
and for the Pacific Mills, Lawrence, Mass., for more than forty years.
He was a director of the Sufifolk Bank, of Boston; of the American
Insurance Office; of the Massachusetts Llospital Life Insurance Company;
of the Boston Water Power Corporation; of the Amesbury Company; of
the Middlesex Canal ; of the New England Trust Company, of which he
was the first president ; of the National Association of Cotton Manufac-
turers and Planters, and of the Association of Knit Goods Maimfacturers,
serving both these associations as president.
In 1846 he purchased a large tract of land in Eastern Wisconsin,
and founded the town of Appleton, on the banks of the Fox River, which
became the capital of Outagamie County and the seat of Lawrence L^ni-
versity, which he founded in 1849, ''"d of which he was the chief benefactor
during his lifetime. Fie was a member of the- Massachusetts Historical
Society and of various benevolent associations. He was treasurer and
one of the three trustees of the New England Immigrant Aid Company,
active from 1854 in supporting the Free Soil Party in Kansas in their
struggle to prevent the establishment of slavery in the territories of Kansas
and Nebraska. It was mainly due to his personal aid and the efiforts of
Eli Thayer, of Worcester, that Kansas became a free state. In i860 he
was the candidate of the Union Party for Governor of Massachusetts,
and when the Civil War was apparent, he devoted much time and money
to military drill and in instructing college students in the manual of
arms. He was the leader in recruiting the Second Regiment Massachu-
setts Volunteer Cavalry in the fall of 1862, and in 1863 he was appointed
by Governor Andrew to organize and recruit the Fifty-fourth Massachu-
setts Regiment, composed of colored men recruited in Boston.
He acted as chairman of the finance committee which raised the fund
to erect Memorial Hall at Cambridge, in honor of the sons of Harvard who
were killed in the service during the Civil War. He was the first treasurer
of the Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge, and served in that
office for fifteen years. In 1873 he built and presented to the school
one-half of the stone dormitory, known as Lawrence Hall, and he com-
pleted the building in 1880. Mr. Lawrence married IMarch 31, 1842, Sarah
OF THE UNITED STATES 271
Elizabeth, daughter of the Hon. W'illiam and Mary Ann (Cutter) Appleton,
and they resided in Pemberton Square, Boston, removing in 185 1 to
Cottage Farm, BrookHne, where he acquired a large landed property, and
where, in 1867, in connection with his brother, William Richard Lawrence,
he built the Church of Our Saviour, Longwood, in memory of their father,
the beautiful church being consecrated by Bishop Eastborn, September 29,
1868. In 1885 his widow added to the gift a stone rectory; and in 1893
their children erected a transejit of the church as a memorial of their
mother who died at L.ongwood, ]\lay 27, 1891. The children of Amos
Adams and Sarah Elizabeth (Appleton) Lawrence were: Marianne Apple-
ton, who married Dr. Roliert Aniory ; Sarah, who married Peter Charles
Brooks; Amory Appleton, born April 22, 1848; William, born May 30,
1850, Bishop of Massachusetts; and Susan, who married William Cabot
Loring. Amos Adams I.-awrence died at his summer home at Nahant,
Mass., August 22, 1886.
AMOS LAWRENCE.
Amos Lawrence was born in Groton, Mass., April 22, 1786, the fourth
son of Major Samuel and Susanna (Parker) Lawrence and brother of
Abbott Lawrence (1792-1855). He attended the public school in Groton
and then spent a term at Groton Academy, leaving school at the age of
thirteen to take a position as clerk in a store at Dunstable, where he re-
mained less than a year. He then served an apprenticeship of seven years
in the general variety store of James Brazer, in Groton, and his next posi-
tion was as clerk in a Boston drygoods store. This firm, within a few
months failed, and Mr. Lawrence was appointed by the creditors to settle
its afifairs. This being satisfactorily accomplished, he, December 17, 1807,
began business on his own account, opening a small drygoods store on
Cornhill. The following year he was joined by his brother Abbott, who
served as his apprentice. January i, 1814, the two brothers formed the
firm of A. & A. Lawrence, and, as a partner, the subject of this sketch be-
came interested in the mantifacture of domestic goods and in promoting
enterprises at Lowell and Lawrence, Mass., the firm becoming large owners
in the first mills erected in these towns. These two brothers, in establish-
ing the commission house of A. & A. Lawrence, not only laid the founda-
tion of their own fortunes, but that of many of the members of the Lawrence
family.
In 1831, on account of ill-health, Amos Lawrence retired from active
participation in business and devoted the remainder of his life to philan-
thropic works. He gave $40,000 to Williams College, and the library of
272 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
the college was named "Lawrence Hall" in his honor. He founded a
library for Groton Academy, giving to the school a valuable telescope, and,
at the time of his death, was engaged in raising $50,000 as an endowment
fund for the academy. In 184^-1 the name was changed to Lawrence
Academy on account of his munificent gifts. He gave generously to Kenyon
College, Ohio; to Wabash College, Indiana, and to Bangor Theological
Seminary, Maine. He established a Children's Infirmary in Boston,
donated a building to the Boston Society of Natural History and contributed
Sio,ooo towards completing Bunker Hill Monument. His fame as a mer-
chant caused his name to be placed among the candidates in "Class B Mer-
chants" as worthy of a place in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans
in October, 1900, and twentv votes were given him, the only candidate re-
ceiving a greater number being Cornelius \^anderbilt, who received twenty-
nine votes, but, as fifty votes were necessary to secure a place, the name
of no merchant appears in the Hall. He served as a representative in the
General Court of Massachusetts, 1822.
Mr. Lawrence was twice married; first to Sarah Richards, June 6, 181 1,
and second to Mrs. Nancy Ellis, widow of Judge Ellis, of Claremont, N. H.,
and daughter of Robert Means, of Amherst, N. H. Mr. Lawrence died in
Boston, December 31, 1852.
ABBOTT LAWRENCE.
Abbott Lawrence was bom in Groton, Mass., December 16, 1792, fifth
child of Samuel and Susanna (Parker) Lawrence and younger brother of
Amos Lawrence (1786-1852) (q. v.). He attended the district school, and
subsequently, for three years, Groton Academy, and worked on his father's
farm during the vacation periods. In 1808 he went to Boston, where he
was apprenticed to his brother Amos in the drygoods business, and on
reaching his majority, December 16, 1813, became a partner in the busi-
ness, the firm of A. & A. Lawrence, importers and dealers in foreign
woolen and cotton goods, being formed January i, 1814. In 181 2 he as-
sisted in organizing the New England Guards, and rendered service in the
Charlestown Navy Yard and elsewhere during the war with Great Britain,
for which service he received a grant of land from the government. Dur-
ing his repeated trips to England to purchase goods, he became alive to
the necessity of manufacturing in the United States, and joined the men
who first proposed to erect factories on the Merrimack River at Lowell.
He led the distinguished company, including William and Samuel Lawrence,
John A. Lowell, Francis C. Lowell, Nathan Appleton, Theodore Lyman,
George W. Lyman, Patrick T. Jackson, James B. Francis and Charles S.
OF THE UNITED STATES 273
Storrow, in organizing the ^ferrimack Water Power Association, of which
he was made president and i\Ir. Storrow treasurer and agent, and in his
honor and that of his brothers, Samuel and WilHam, Bodwell Falls be-
came known as Lawrence and was incorporated as a town in 1847. The
Atlantic Mills were chartered in 1846 and three mills erected in 1849-52
for the manufacture of sheetings and shirtings, which were sold by the firm
of A. & A. Lawrence. Abbott Lawrence was elected the first president of
the corporation, and when the Pacific ]\Iills was formed and incorporated
he became president of that corporation also, and so continued up to the
time of his death, in 1855.
He was largely interested in political affairs, and served as one of the
seven delegates from New England to the Harrisburg Tarifi: Convention
of 1827; was a member of the Common Council of Boston, 1832, declining
re-election ; was a Whig representative from Massachusetts in the Twenty-
fourth Congress, 1835-37, serving on the Ways and Means Committee; de-
clined to stand for the next election, but was elected to the Twenty-sixth
Congress, taking his seat in 1830, but was obliged to resign in September,
1840, on account of ill-health. He was the United States Commissioner
to settle the Northeastern boundary question in 1842 with Lord Ashbur-
ton, the representative of Great Britain. He was a delegate to the Whig
National Convention at Baltimore. Md., May i, 1844, and to the National
Convention of 1848. He accepted the position of United States Minister
to England, but resigned in 1S52 and returned to Boston. He gave $50,000
to endow the Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard L^niversity, and be-
queathed $50,000 for the erection on East Canton Street. Boston, of model
lodging houses for the poor: Sio.ooo to the Boston Public Library, and
$50,000 to the Lawrence Scientific School. He received the honorary de-
gree of LL. D. from Williams College in 1852 and from Harvard College
in 1854, of which body he was an overseer, 1854-55, a member of the
Massachusetts Historical Society and a fellow of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences. He married June 28, iSiQ, Katharine Bigelow (1793-
1860), eldest daughter of Hon. Timothy and Lucy (Prescott) Bigelow,
granddaughter of Col. Timothy and .A^nna (Andrew) Bigelow, of Wor-
cester, Mass., and of Dr. Oliver and Lydia (Baldwin) Prescott, of Groton,
Mass., and their children were : Annie Bigelow, who married Benjamin
Smith Rotch, of New Bedford, Mass., July 30, 1846; James, who married
Elizabeth, daughter of William Hickling Prescott, the historian, and Sarah
(Amory) Prescott, March 16, 1852; George (April 16, 1824-August 7,
182^); John Abbott (June 11, 1825-Tune 22, 1825); Timothy Bigelow
(1826-1869), Harvard College A. E. i8.^fi. A. M. 1849, attache of the Amer-
ican Legation at London, England. 1849-55: on staff of General E. D.
Keyes, Army of the Potomac, 1861 ; consul-general to Florence, Italv,
1862-69.
A public memorial service was held in Faneuil Hall, August 20, 1855,
274 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
at which the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, Hon. Edward Everett and other
of the leading men of New England eulogized his character and services.
Abbott Lawrence died in Boston, Mass., .August iS, 1855.
AMORY APPLETON LAWRENCE.
Amory Appleton Lawrence was born in Boston, Mass., April 22,
1848. He was the son of Amos Adams and Sarah Elizabeth (Appleton)
Lawrence. (For genealogy see sketch of his father, Ibid.)
He attended school in Brookline and Boston, and was graduated from
Harvard University, A. B. 1870, and in the same year entered the liouse
of Lawrence & Co., drygoods commission merchants. In 1871 he was ad-
mitted to the firm, and, as a member of it, became a large investor in cot-
ton manufacturing enterprises. He was director of the Ipswich Mills,
1S70; treasurer, October, 1870. to October, 1873, and president from 1S76.
A director of the Gilmanton Mills, Belmont, N. H., from 1875, and was
made president of that corporation in 1886. He was a director of the
Salmon Falls Manufacturing Comjiany, Salmon Falls, N. H., from 1886,
and president from 1894; a director of the I'acific Mills. Lawrence, Mass.,
from 1884; a director of the Dwight Manufacturing Company, Chicopee,
Mass., from 1884; director of the Cocheco ^Manufacturing Company, Dover,
N. H., from 1886, and treasurer of the Groton Water Company from 1897
to 1900. The Boston Merchants' .Association, of which he was a member,
at their annual meeting in January, 1901, elected him president of the as-
sociation; and in March, igo2, he was one of three Boston merchants
selected as a committee to settle the teamsters' strike which threatened to
paralyze the city trade, and, with the aid of Governor Crane, in a single
night's conference with the strikers settled the difficulty. Mr. Lawrence
was a member of the managing board of the Boston Episcopal Charitable
Society, and in 1891 he was made treasurer of the society. He was also
director of Boston Manufacturing Co., of Waltham, from 1904; director
of Waltham Bleachery and Dye Works from 1904. He was also vice-
president of Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Co. ; trustee Provi-
dent Institution for Savings of Boston ; trustee of the Church Home for
Orphan and Destitute Children at South Boston ; vice-president of the
Perkins Institute for the Blind at South Boston ; vice-president of the In-
dustrial School for Crippled Children^ of Boston.
Mr. Lawrence was a member of the managing board of the Boston
Episcopal Charitable Society, and in 1891 he was made treasurer of the
society. Harvard Class of 1870 made him chairman of the Class Committee
in 1870, and he was elected overseer of Harvard College in 1906 for five
OF THE UNITED STATES 275
years. He married, June i, 1871, Emily Fairfax (daughter of John Board-
man and Martha Mansfield (Shepard) Silsbee), and their son, Amos Amory
Lawrence, was born in Boston, December i, 1874; was prepared for col-
lege at St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H. ; was graduated at Harvard Uni-
versity A. B. 1896; was a postgraduate student at Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, 1896-97, in the Department of Architectors : studied at
the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and there obtained his diploma in June,
1905. Their second child, John Silsbee Lawrence, was born at Nahant,
Mass., September 6, 1878. (See sketch. Ibid.) Their third child, Edith,
born in Boston, November 10, 1879, m.arried, February 19, 1903, Harold
Jefferson Coolidge (Harvard, 1892), son of Joseph Randolph and Julia
(Gardner) Coolidge, and a lineal descendant of Thomas Jefferson, third
president of the United States. He became a member of the firm of Loring
& Coolidge, of Boston, and their sons are Harold Jefferson Coolidge, Jr.,
born January 15, 1904, and Lawrence Coolidge, born January 16, 1905-
Mrs. Lawrence died in Boston, April 4, 1895, and Mr. Lawrence married
(secondly), at Groton, Mass., June 12, 1900, Gertrude Major, daughter of
Francis Blake and Sallie Blake (Austin) Rice, of Boston, and she died in
Boston, January 11, 1907. In April, 1911, he married (third), Mrs. Laura
Amory Dugan, daughter of General Thomas I. C. and Mary (Dolan)
Amory; adopted daughter of Charles B. Amory, and widow of Thomas
Clay Dugan.
JOHN. S. LAWRENCE.
John Silsbee Lawrence was born in Nahant, Mass., September 6, 1878,
the son of Amory .A. and Emily Fairfax (Silsbee) Lawrence. Prepared
for college at Noble and Greenough's School, Boston, he entered Harvard
and was graduated, A. B., in the class of 1901. He then decided to adopt
a mercantile profession, and entered as clerk the firm of Lawrence & Co.,
of which his father was senior member, and in 1906 John S. Lawrence
was admitted to partnership.
In 1907 he became a director. of the Second National Bank of Boston;
in 1908 a director of the American Trust Co.; in 1907 a trustee of the
Suffolk Savings Bank, and in 1910 a director of the New England Cas-
ualty Co.
As a member of the Chamber of Commerce, he took great interest in
Boston's fuel supply, and was one of the leaders in securing for Boston
an efficient smoke bill in 191 o.
Mr. Lawrence married, April 29, 1907, Emma, daughter of Isabelle
(Ray) and George E. Atherton, of Brookline, Mass., and on February 6,
1910, their first child, Eloise, was born.
276 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
PATRICK TRACY JACKSON.
Patrick Tracy Jackson was born in Newburyport, Essex County,
Massachusetts, August 14, 1780. He was the son of Jonathan and Hannah
(Tracy) Jackson, grandson of Edward and Dorothy (Quincy) Jackson;
great-grand-^on of Jonathan and j\Iary (Salter) Jackson; great-great-grand-
son of Jonathan Jackson and great-great-great-grandson of Edward Jack-
son, who came from England to Massachusetts P)ay Colony about 1643 with
his wife and Jonathan and settled in Cambridge, was deputy to the Gen-
eral Court, 1647-54, and eleven times in later years selectman and one of
the proprietors of the town of Cambridge. Patrick Tracy Jackson's father,
the Hon. Jonathan Jackson (1743-1810) was born in Boston; graduated
from Harvard, 1761: settled in Newburyport about 1762 as a merchant;
was a delegate to the provincial Congress of 1775 ; delegate to Continental
Congress, 1782; United States Marshal under President Washington. 1789-
91; treasurer of Alassachusetts, 1805-1810; the first president of the first
bank established in Boston; treasurer of Harvard corporation and fellow
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1807-10. He married, Jan-
uary 3, 1767, Sarah Barnard, and secondly, June i, 1772. Hannah, daughter
of Captain Patrick Tracy.
Patrick Tracy Jackson was educated in the Newburyport Public Schools
and Dummer Academy. In 1795 he was apprenticed to William Bartlett,
a shipping merchant, and from iRoo was repeatedly sent as supercargo to
the East Indies, and in 1808 was engaged in the East India trade on his
own accoimt in Boston, in which he amassed a large fortune. His sister,
Hannah, married Francis Cabot Lowell (q. v.), and this marriage brought
the two men into intimate business relations. Lowell, who had studied the
working of the power loom used in England in weaving cotton cloth, sought
the assistance of Mr. Jackson in constructing a loom, with the object of
engaging in the extensive manufacture of cotton in New England. Lowell
had bnt a vague knowledge of the construction of the English loom, but
he imparted what information he had to ]\Ir. Jackson, and the two men
invented the model from which Paul Moody constructed the first power
loom used in the LTnited States. In 1813 they organized the Boston Manu-
facturing Company and rebuilt an old mill at Waltham in which the loom
was set in motion by the water power of the Charles River, and 1,700
spindles were installed to furnish yarn for the loom. While other mills
had already spun cotton yarn by mechanical power, this was the first mill
to produce cotton cloth from raw cotton both spun and woven by machinery
under one roof, thus constituting a complete cotton mill operated by water
power. In 1821 Mr. Jackson purchased land on the Merrimack River at
East Chelmsford, on the Pawtucket Canal (Mr. Jackson had designed and
built the Pawtucket dam), organized and became first president of the
Merrimack Manufacturing Company. The machinery of this company was
//^^i^
OF THE UNITED STATES 277
set in motion in September, 1823. This enterprise and the Appleton Mills,
which began operations in 182S, were the nucleus of the great cotton manu-
facturing city of Lowell.
In 1830 ^Ir. Jackson laid the foundation of another important work
in securing the charter of and organizing the Boston and L.owell Railroad.
A great deal of the property between Boston and Lowell was owned by
the Locks and Canals Company, and, believing that the railroad would en-
hance the value of the land, the company offered a bonus of $100,000 to
whatever company engaged in the construction of same. Mr. Jackson, in
company with Mr. Boott and Mr. Moody, had a general survey of the dis-
trict made, and estimated the expense, income, etc. It was decided that
the road should be built, and those interested looked to Mr. Jackson as
constructor. Work was commenced in 1831, and May 27, 1835, the road
was opened ; the first trains ever drawn by the locomotive. It was a
wonderful advance in the mode of land transportation of both pas-
sengers and freight, and was used as a model for construction and equip-
ment of the roads that rapidly followed. In the course of a few years,
with business constajitly on the increase, greater accommodations had to
be made. Mr. Jackson had anticipated the necessity of two tracks over
the road, and his plans were carried out, and car houses, freight houses,
yards and depots were built and increased. For several years Mr. Jack-
son gave exclusive attention to the railroad and collateral undertakings.
In the progress of his great work, the fact is worthy of mention that he
levelled the top of Beacon Hill, Boston, and made the land where the
present North Station stands.
In 1837 came a dark period. The panic of that year impaired a great
part of his fortune. In April, 1838, however, he was offered and accepted
the agency of the Locks & Canals Co., and retained that office until Sep-
tember, 1S45. Iri September, 1840, he was invited to become agent of
the Great Falls Manufacturing Company. He accepted, and immediately
devised a ])lan by which this company might retrieve at least a portion of
its fortune lost in the panic. He conducted the affairs of the company
successfully for many years, which resulted in large dividends during the
period of his agency.
In 1810 Air. Jackson married Lydia. daughter of Andrew and Lydia
(Dodge) Cabot, of Beverly, Mass., and their children were: Anna Cabot
(Jackson) Lowell, Sarah Cabot (Jackson) Russell, Patrick Tracy Jack.son,
Hannah Lowell (Jackson! Cabot, Catherine Cabot (Jackson) Stone,
Eleanor Jackson and Edward Jackson.
Patrick Tracy Jackson, "the pioneer cotton manufacturer," died at
Beverly, Mass., September 12, 1847.
278 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
PATRICK TRACY JACKSON (2d)
Patrick Tracy Jackson (2d) was born at Watertown, Mass., Novem-
ber 5, 1818, son of Patrick Tracy and Lydia (Cabot) Jackson. (For
genealogy see sketch of his father, Ibid.) The subject of this sketch at-
tended private schools in Boston, and was graduated from Harvard, A. B.,
1838, A. M., 1841. On leaving college he entered the counting house of
James K. Mills & Co., in Boston ; was made a partner, the firm name
being changed to C. H. Mills & Co., and remained with that house up to
1857. He was manager of the Hampden Mills, 1852-75, and while in that
position introduced the manufacture of fine ginghams into this country and
was also a cotton buyer in Boston, 1875-86. He served the city of Boston
as councilman.
Mr. Jackson married March 23, 1843, Susan Mary, daughter of Charles
Greely (1794-1867) and Anna Pierce (Brace) Loring. They had four
children: Patrick Tracy Jackson (3d), who married Eleanor B. Gray and
was president of the Lowell Weaving Company in 1906; Charles Loring
Jackson, born A.pril 4, 1847, Harvard A. B. 1867, A. M. 1870, assistant in
chemistry Harvard Universisty 1S67-71, assistant professor of chemistry
1871-81, student under Bunsen, Heidelberg, 1873, under Hofmann, Berlin,
1874-75, fi^ll professor of chemistry at Harvard, 1881-94, and Erving pro-
fessor of chcni'stry frcim 181-1. fellow of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, member of the National Academy of Science and of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, associate fellow
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science ; Anna Pierce
Jackson; and Ernest Jackson, Harvard A. B. 1878, A. M. 1879.
Patrick Tracy Jackson (1818-1891) died at Beverly, Mass., November
10, 1891.
PATRICK TRACY JACKSON (4th)
Patrick Tracy Jackson (4th) was born in Cambridge, Mass., Novem-
ber 7, 1872; son of Patrick Tracy and Eleanor B. (Gray) Jackson. (For
genealogy see sketch of great-grandfather. Ibid.) The father of Patrick
Tracy, the subject of this sketch, was first lieutenant in the Fifth Massa-
chusetts Cavalry during the Civil War, became a cotton broker and was
trustee of estates, treasurer of the Boston Provident Association, of the
Eastern Yacht Club, and president and director of the Lowell Weaving
Company, of Lowell, Mass., in 1906.
Patrick Tracy Jackson (4th) was prepared for college at the Browne
& Nichols School in Cambridge, and was graduated from Harvard Col-
OF THE UNITED STATES 279
lege, A. B., 1893. He became a machinist's apprentice in the Boston Blower
Company, Hyde Park, JNIass., immediately after his graduation from
Harvard, and was designer and draughtsman for the Dwight Manufactur-
ing Company, Chicopee, Mass., 1896-97, and designer for Arlington Mills,
with Harding, Whitman & Co., Boston, 1898-1901. He served in the
Massachusetts Naval Militia for one year as a private. He was made a
director in The Fisk Rubber Company, Chicopee Falls, Mass. ; treasurer and
director of the Lowell Weaving Company, of which his father was presi-
dent from January, 1902, and in 1906 he organized with M. C. Taylor,
of New York City, the I-e Roy Cotton Mills, of Le Roy. N. Y., witli a
capital of $450,000, for the purpose of making black and white twist yarns,
and in June, 1906, on the first election of the board of directors, he was
made treasurer and general manager of the mills.
In 1907, with M. C. Taylor and Chas. M. Warner, of New York City,
he bought the \'ictoria MilW, of Newburyport, Mass., then owned by the
Peabody Mfg. Co., converting it from a weaving mill into a yarn mill.
The new com]3any was named the Warner Cotton Mills, and organized with
a capital of $300,000. He was elected treasurer and general manager at
the first meeting, held in January. In 1007, also, he organized, with M. C.
Taylor the Boston Yarn Co., with a capital of $2,000, for the purpose of
selling the product of the Le Roy Cotton Mills and Warner Cotton Mills.
he being elected president. The capital was later increased to $50,000 in
1908, and then to $100,000 in 1909, and the company took on also the sell-
ing accounts of the Lowell Weaving Co. and Passaic Cotton Mills, of
Passaic, N. J. In April, 1910, the capital stock of the company was sold
outright to the J. Spencer Turner Co., of New York City, the management
being left in control.
In March, 1909, he organized with M. C. Taylor, of New York City ;
R. P. Snelling and F. T. Hale, of the Saco-Pettee Co., and C. M. Warner,
of New York City, the Bay State Cotton Corporation, capitalized at $1,500,-
000, which, acting as a holding company through exchange of stock, com-
bined the Lowell Weaving Co., Warner Cotton ]\Iills and Le Roy Cotton
Mills. He was elected treasurer and general manager at the first meeting.
In July, 1910, in conjunction with Messrs. M. C. Taylor, A. P. Loring.
S. P. Warfield, R. P. Snelling. F; T. Hale and C. M. Warner, he helped
organize the International Cotton Mills Corporation, capitalized at $20,000,-
000, which, through exchange of stock, combines the Consolidated Cotton
Corporation. J. Spencer Turner Co., Boston Yarn Co. and Bay State Cot-
ton Corporation. He was elected vice-president and manager of the Eastern
and Canadian Mills, also member of the executive board of directors.
On April 11, 1898, Mr. Jackson married Anne, daughter of William S.
and Mary (Head") Smoot, of Brookline, Mass., and their daughter, Anna
Loring Jackson, was born October 5, 1904. A son, Patrick Tracy Jack-
son, was born November 10, 1906. being the fifth of that name in direct
descent.
28o TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
KIRK BOOTT.
Kirk Boott was born in Boston, Mass., October 20, 1790. He was
the son of Kirk Boott, an Englishman who came to Boston soon after the
Revohition and estabHshed himself as a merchant. He had large shipping
interests, Boott & Sons being importers of British goods, for sale almost
exclusively to the country trade, and resided in a mansion at the corner
of Cambridge Street and Bowdoin Square, then known as the Boott House,
and now the Revere House.
The younger Kirk Boott was one of nine children : John Wright, Kirk,
Francis, James, William, Frances, Annie, Mary L. and Eliza. He was
educated at Rugby, England, entered Harvard in 1807, but did not com-
plete his course. He studied surveying and engineering in England, and
his father purchased a commission for him in the English army as Lieu-
tenant in the Eighty-fifth, the Duke of York's regiment, in which capacity
he served in the Peninsular War under Wellington. During July, 1813, he
commanded a detachment at the siege of San Sebastian. He was present
at the battles of Nieve and the Nevelle, the passage of the Garonne, and
the siege of Bayonne. In all, he served with great credit for five years in
the British army; but his loyalty to his native country caused him to yield
his commission when his regiment was ordered to America, where later it
participated in the Battle of New Orleans.
Mr. Boott returned to England and married there a lady of high social
standing. In 1817 his father's death drew him back to America, where he
joined his brothers in carrying on the business in which his father had been
highly successful, but which, under the management of the sons, proved a
failure.
In 1821 he was urged by Patrick T. Jackson to accept a partnership
in the new manufacturing interest at East Chelmsford, Mass., then being
fostered by Mr. Jackson and Nathan Appleton. Mr. Boott assented, and
the articles of the jMerrimac Manufacturing Company being drawn up, he
was appointed its treasurer and agent, January i, 1822, for a period of five
years, at a salarv of three thousand dollars per annum. He purchased, at
a par value of $1,000, ninety out of its six hundred shares of stock.
The act of incorporation was granted February 5, 1822, and Mr. Boott
settled with his family at East Chelmsford (afterwards Lowell), where
he resided until his death. He had charge of all the operations necessary
in the building and equipment of the mill, which included the enlargement
of an old canal and the building of a new one before it could be success-
fully operated. The Merrimac Company's Mill commenced to manufacture
printed calicoes September 23, 1823. Mr. Boott was appointed agent of
the Company of the "Proprietors of Locks and Canals on Merrimac River"
upon its re-organization in 1825, and combined that office with his duties
as treasurer and agent of the Merrimac Company, and to his tireless energ\'
#
€^
OF THE UNITED STATES 281
and fostering care the cotton industry of America is in no small measure
indebted for its immense success in the early days of its establishment.
Though Jackson and Appleton had their share in the making of the mill
industry in Lowell, yet the foremost of these are Boott and Lowell. When
writing of either, their names must be associated as the promoters of Lowell.
Mr. Boott was a man of integrity and honor, and well fitted to take
the part of a leader in a great industrial enterprise. He was interested
in the political affairs of Lowell, served as its representative in the legis-
lature, and took a deep interest in all matters pertaining to its welfare.
At his death he left a wife and a family of six children: Kirk, John
Wright, Fred, Sarah, Mary Love, and Eliza. He died very suddenly, at the
age of forty-seven, April 11, 1837.
GEORGE DRAPER.
George Draper was born in Weston, Mass., August 16, 1817. He was
the son of Ira and Abigail (daughter of Lemuel and Rebecca Richards)
Draper; grandson of Abijah and Alice (Eaton) Draper; great-grandson of
James and Abigail (Whiting) Draper, and great-great-grandson of James,
the immigrant progenitor of the American Drapers, who was a son of
Thomas Draper, a well-known manufacturer and fuller of Yorkshire, Eng-
land. The son was brought up in his father's business, and in 1647-48 came
to Massachusetts with his wife, Miriam Stansfield, and settled at Roxbury.
Major Abijah Draper, the grandfather of George (1737-1780), was an
officer in the Colonial militia and commanded a body of minute men under
Washington at Roxbury, 1776, and took part in the Battle of Lexington.
His son, Ira Draper (1764-1848), was the inventor of the first threshing
machine, of the "ily shuttle handloom," of the "revolving temple" for
keeping cloth extended in the process of weaving, and of many minor in-
ventions ; and, during the administration of President John Quincy Adams,
he was a candidate for the office of L-nited States Commissioner of Patents.
George Draper, the subject of this sketch, attended the public schools
of Saugus and worked on his father's farm. When fifteen years of age
he became second-hand of weaving in the cotton mills at North Uxbridge.
He then entered the cotton-sheeting mill located at Walpole, Norfolk
County, a small manufactory of which he was superintendent and manager
for a short time. From the Walpole Mill he went to Three Rivers, Mass.,
where he was overseer of weaving in a large mill, 1835-39, and while there
he made an improvement in the revolving temples invented by his father.
He was then employed for three years at the Lowell Mill, after which he
was engaged as designer in the mill built by Edward Harris in Woonsocket
282 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
for the manufacture of "Harris cassimeres." In 1845 he went to Ware,
Mass., as superintendent of one of the Otis Company's Mills, and before
he left the employ of the Otis Company he was general superintendent of
the entire plant. In 1853 he removed to Hopedale, then a part of the town
of Mil ford, Worcester County, and he there joined his brother, Ebenezer
Daggett Draper, in the business organized by his father for the manu-
facturing of revolving temples. He also became a member of the HopedaJe
Community, of which his brother, E. D. Draper, was president. This was
a socialistic organization intended to be based upon practical Christianity,
and was founded by Adin Ballon about the year 1842, on a joint stock
basis, with a mutual industrial division of profits. The Community failed
in 1856, and Ebenezer D. and George Draper took the property and paid
its debts. By this means they became owners of two small shops in which
hatchets, temples, shoe boxes, etc., were manufactured, the work being
done by fifteen hands, and this was the foundation of the Hopedale in-
ventions and the fortune of the Draper Company. In 1868 Ebenezer D.
Draper retired from the business, and this made way for the firm of George
Draper & Sons. George Draper was a man of great ability as an inventor,
and he took out probably over one hundred patents, including self-acting
temples, railway head-eveners, parallel shuttle motion, a new form of let-
off motion, a shuttle guard for looms, a self-lubricating bearing for
spindles, double adjustable spinning rings, slasher, warpers and bobbin hold-
ers for spooling. His high speed and power-saving spindle is said to have
doubled the quantity of yarn produced in a given time, and his improve-
ments in speed and power utilization were estimated to represent a saving
equal to two water-powers like that of Lowell. His spinning-frame sepa-
rators came into universal use in the United States and into general use in
England. Mr. Draper was a large stockholder in many cotton manufactur-
ing corporations in New England and a large owner in the Shaw Stocking
Works, of I.owell, of which concern he became president; the Glasgow
Thread Co.. of Worcester, and the Glasgow Yarn Mills, of Norwich, Conn.
He was also interested in the Milford and Woonsocket and in the Hopkin-
ton railroads. His political faith found expression first in the Whig party,
and, upon its dissolution, in the Free-Soil organization, out of which evolved
the Republican j)arty in 1855. He was the organizer of the Home Market
Club and its first president. EFe kept in close touch with the leaders in
public affairs in Massachusetts in the Republican party, but always refused
to accept public office. He favored the abolition movement, was a friend
of William Lloyd Garrison, and was a member of Governor John A. An-
drew's Advisory Board during the Civil War. During this period his busi-
ness was always second to his interest in the soldiers at the front and in the
general support of the government. After the war his concern was for the
protection of the manufacturing industries of the country, and he kept a
zealous watch over the lawmakers at Washington and maintained a con-
UF THE UNITED STATES 283
stant correspondence with Representative William D. Kelly, of Pennsyl-
vania; William McKinley, of Ohio, and George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts,
and the other prominent champions of protection in the United States Con-
gress. This interest absorbed most of his time during the later part of his
life His gifts of money included a handsome annual gift to the Soldiers'
Home in Chelsea, the Town Hall in Hopedale, while to the Unitarian Church
in Hopedale his gifts were liberal and continuous. His private beneficence
was generous and unostentatious ; he cared for the men in his employ with
a father's interest ; the temperance cause was one of his most anxious con-
cerns, and the Grand Army Posts were constant debtors to his benevolence.
Mr. Draper married, March 6, 18.3Q, Hannah, daughter of Benjamin and
Anna Thwing, of Uxbridge, Mass. This union was blessed with eight
children, of whom the eldest was William Franklin Draper, Ibid; the
second son died in infancy; the third son, George Albert, was born in
Hopedale, November 4, 1855, and the fourth son, Eben Sumner, was born
in Hopedale, June 17, 1858. His two daughters who reached maturity were :
Frances E. (Colburn) and Hannah T. (Osgood).
Mr. Draper was a pioneer manufacturer of cotton machinery in New
England, and was a man of extraordinary strength of character, energy
and intellectual attainment, coupled with great mechanical skill. He was
the author of numerous pamphlets relating to protection and to the manu-
facture of cotton goods. He died at the United States Hotel in Boston,
Mass., June 7, 1887.
EBENEZER DAGGETT DRAPER.
Ebenezer Daggett Draper was born in Weston, Middlesex County,
Mass., June 13, 1813; son of Ira and Abigal (Richards) Draper; grandson
of Major Abijah and Alice (Eaton) Draper and of John and Elizabeth
(Lovering) Eaton, of Dedham, and a descendant of James and Miriam
(Stansfield) Draper. James Draper, the immigrant, founded a textile
business in Roxbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1647, having learned
the trade of fuller of cloth from his father, Thomas Draper, of Yorkshire,
England. Ira Draper, the father of Ebenezer Daggett Draper, was the
inventor of the first threshing machine and of the revolving loom temple.
He conducted a farm in Weston and removed from Weston to Saugus,
Mass., where Ebenezer attended the district school and when sixteen years
of age found employment in the cotton mills at North Uxbridge, Worcester
County, Mass., and subsequently was overseer of the mills. He became
president of the Hopedale Community, formed about the year 1842 as
a joint stock, practical Christian association with a mutual industrial
arrangement by which the capital and profits were communistic. The
284 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Community grew to a village of about fifty dwellirtgs and about two
hundred and fifty people. They owned six hundred acres of land and a
few small shops; the shop for the manufacture of the Draper revolving
temples, used in holding cloth while being woven, being the contribution
of Ebenezer Draper, who was joined by his brother, George Draper, in
1852. In 1856, when the Hopedale Community gave up business, the firm
of E. D. & G. Draper was formed and they took the property of the
Community, paid the debts, and continued the manufacture of revolving
temples and loom improvements. Subsequently, Ebenezer Daggett Draper
withdrew in 1868 to become treasurer of the American Steam Fire-Proof
Safe Company, and in this venture he lost all his property.
The subject of this sketch married Anna Thwing, September 11, 1834.
No children were born of this union, but a son, Charles Henry Eaton, was
adopted, and he became a prominent Universalist clergyman and died
in New York City in 1902. Mr. Draper died October 20 1887.
WILLIAM FRANKLIN DRAPER.
William Franklin Draper was born in Lowell, Mass., April g, 1842.
He was the eldest son of George and Hannah B. (Thwing) Draper. (For
genealogy see sketch of his father, George Draper, Ibid.) He was brought
up in Lowell, Mass., Woonsocket, R. I., Ware, Mass., where he attended
the high school, and at Hopedale, Mass., where he was a pupil in the
Hopedale Home School. His father, George Draper, being a member of
the Hopedale Community, William F. was brought up according to the
tenets of the sect, and his study was interspersed by periods of manual labor.
He left school at sixteen, in the expectation of entering Harvard when a
few years older, and spent the ensuing three years in P. W'bitin & Sons
Mill in North Uxbridge, in a mill at Wauregan, Conn., and at the Saco
Water Power Co., Biddeford, Me., in acquiring a practical knowledge of
the details of all the departments of cotton manufacturing. His work in
these directions was brought to a close August 9, 1861, by his enlistment
in a volunteer company that was being recruited through the inspiration and
efforts of his father. The Hopedale Company became the Twenty-fifth
Massachusetts Volunteers, young Draper being chosen second lieutenant.
His war record was a brilliant one, and is chronicled elsewhere. (See
"Recollections of a Varied Career." William F. Draper. .\lso National
Biography, Volume VI). His term of service expired October 12, -1864,
and he was honorably discharged, with the brevets of colonel and brigadier-
general for "gallant service during the war.'' General Draper then entered
the employ of the firm of E. D. & G. Draper at Hopedale. This firm.
/fe_ a A^.
OF THE UNITED STATES 28s
formed in 1852, was composed of his uncle, Eben D. Draper, and his father,
George Draper, who had succeeded their father Ira in 1825, Ira Draper
having been in business from 1816 as the inventor and maker of revolving
temples and looms. General Draper in 1868 bought out the interest of his
uncle, Eben D. Draper, and the firm of George Draper & Son came into
existence. In 1887, George A. Draper, the second son of George Draper,
was admitted and the firm name became George Draper & Sons, and in
1880, Eben S. Draper, the third son of George Draper, became a partner.
In 1887, George Draper, the senior member of the firm, died, and William
F. Draper, Jr., the eldest son of General Draper, was admitted to partner-
ship. In 1 189, George Otis Draper, the second son of General Draper,
was admitted to the firm, and in January, 1897, the business was reorganized
and corporated as the Draper Company, with William F. Draper, Sr., as
president. His part in the business as senior member of the firm and as
an inventor is most noteworthy. His mechanical and inventive talent were
an inheritance from two and a half centuries of family skill and growth
along the line of textile manipulation applied to the raw woolen and cotton
by way of spinning and weaving, but principally applied for the last
century to cotton. The Drapers, under the auspices of General Draper,
have doubled the speed of spindles and divided the cost of spinning cotton
yarns by two. Their inventions not only came into universal use in the
United States, but were largely introduced in other parts of the world. To
America, the cost of machinery alone has been so decreased by reason of
their inventions as to save not less than fifty million dollars to manufacturers,
while the saving in labor, power and incidental expenses has probably been
four times as great. General Draper, in 1905, hoped to halve the cost of
weaving as he had of spinning, and had for many years employed as skilled
inventors Mr. James H. Winthrop and Mr. Charles F. Roper, and others,
to carry out the results of his own thought and study along the lines of
improving the art of weaving. The machine was in 1906 perfected for
many lines of cotton goods and he assigned himself the task of perfecting
it in all lines. He took charge of the business of defending the patents
of himself, which on cotton machinery numbered nearly one hundred, and
those of his co-workers, against infringement, and in it showed marked
legal instinct. As a mechanic he became known as one of the foremost
experts in the United States on spinning machinery. This was largely due
to his early training under his father and his long experience as an
inventor and manufacturer.
General Draper, in his memoirs under the title of "Recollections of a
Varied Career" in the final chapter makes reference to the causes which
led to a most important change in his business relations, occurring in 1906.
At the time of General Draper's death, he was busily engaged in experi-
ments carried on under his own personal supervision to still further improve
the art of weaving.
286 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
For thirty-five years General Draper was a director in the Milford
National Bank, was one of the heaviest stockholders in the Milford Shoe
Co., Milford Water Co., Milford Gas Light Co., and other Milford enter-
prises, in most of which he was a director.
He was a director of the Arhngton and other cotton mills, and also a
director of the First National Bank of Boston.
General Draper was a member of the school committee of Hopedale,
member of Governor Long's staff during his three years' service to the
Commonwealth, 1880-83, was a delegate to the Republican National Con-
vention of 1876, elector-at-large for Massachusetts on the Harrison and
Morton ticket in 1888; was a candidate before the Republican State Con-
vention, in 1888, for the nomination of his party for governor of Mass.,
and received a handsome vote in the convention, and in 1889, he declined an
assured nomination for that office, he represented the eleventh district of
Massachusetts, in the fifty-ithird and fifty-fourth Congresses, 1802-07.
where he was a bulwark of defense against the enemies to protection,
second on the committee on foreign affairs and acting chairman during a
continued illness of Representative Hitt, of Illinois, the chairman of the
committee. He also held the chairmanship of the Committee on Patents.
He urged moderate action on the Chinese exclusion bill and his speech on
the Hawiian question was adopted as a part of the Senate report. He
opposed the resolution which censured Ambassador Bayard and his speech
was widely published and received the hearty commendation of the con-
servatives of both political parties. He served as United States Ambassador
to Italy, 1897-1900, by appointment of President McKinley, and in 1900,
he was decorated by King Victor Emmanuel HI with the Grand Cordon of
the Order of S. S. Maurice and Lagare. and he received the honorary degree
of LL. D. from Washington and Lee LTniversity in the same year.
He was a companion of the' military order of the Loyal Legion of the
United States, and he served as commander of the Massachusetts division
of the order. He was a member of the Arkwright Club, Grand Army,
Knights Templar, Sons of the Revolution, Society of Colonial ^^'ars, the
Union and Algonquin Clubs, and the Hope Club of Providence.
General Draper married, September 15, 1862, Lydia, adopted daughter
of the Hon. David Joy, of Nantucket. IMass., and the children by this
marriage were William Franklin, Jr., George Otis, Edith, Arthur Joy and
Clare H. Mrs. Draper died February 14, 1884. Mr. Draper married
secondly. May 22, 1890, Susan Christy, daughter of General William
Preston, of Kentucky, an officer in the Mexican War, United States Min-
ister to Spain under Buchanan and a major-general in the Confederate
army. By the second marriage one child, Alargaret Preston, was bom,
March 18, i8gi.
General Draper was the author of "History of Spindles" (18 — ) ; "In-
fluence of Invention on Cotton Manufacturing Industries'' (18 — ); an
OF THE UNITED STATES 287
autobiography entitled "Recollections of a Varied Career," 1908; and of
numerous magazine articles.
General William F. Draper died at his home in Washington, D. C,
January 31, 1910.
EBEN SUMNER DRAPER.
Eben Sumner Draper was born in the town of Milford (that part
of the town called Hopedale), Worcester County, Massachusetts, June 17,
1858, son of George and Hannah (Thwing) Draper. (For ancestry see
sketch of his father. Ibid.)
The subject of this sketch attended the public schools of his native
town, and was prepared for business life in the Allen School, West Newton,
Mass. He then completed a course in the deparatment of engineering at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1880. and began work in the
Hopedale Machine Shops, where he was thoroughly trained in the various
details of the intricate business. He had at first obtained a practical knowl-
edge of the working of cotton machinery in the cotton mills of LoweJl,
Manchester and other New England manufacturing cities, and his knowl-
edge thus acquired, through three years of practical work, made him ex-
pert and at home either in the cotton mill, where it was to be his business,
as selling agent for the Hopedale concerns, to introduce new machinery,
or in the machine shop in which the machinery was made.
He was made a member of the firm of George Draper & Sons in 1880.
On the organization of the Draper Company in 1896, he was elected selling
agent.
Mr. Draper became a member of the corporation of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and of the Board of Managers of the Milford
Hospital, which he and Mrs. Draper presented to the town of Milford and
which is one of the best equipped hospitals in the State. Also a member
of the Board of Trustees of the Peter Brigham Hospital, and vice-
President of the American Unitarian Association. He was also a director
of the Boston & Albany R. R., National Shawmut Bank, Old Colony Trust
Co., and New England Cotton Yarn Co. He was associated with the
Hopedale Machine Company, the Dutcher Temple Company, the Hopedale
Screw Machine Company, the Globe Yarn Mills, the Continental Mills, of
Lewiston and the Glasgow Thread Company. He became vice-President
of the Manville Company, and director of the Draper Company, of the
Milford National Bank, the Queen City Cotton Company, of Vermont and
the Sawyer Spindle Company, of Maine.
Governor Draper was a member of the Massachusetts militia for three
years, and on the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, he was made
288 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
President of the Massachusetts Volunteer Aid Association by Governor
Wolcott, the greatest work of tlie association being the purchase and
equipment of the hospital ship "Bay State," at an expense of $200,000, the
association also raising $200,000 more for the care of the Massachusetts
soldiers and sailors. He was also chairman of the Massachusetts Associa-
tion for the Relief of California.
Governor Draper had never held political office or been a political
candidate up to 1905, when the Republican State Convention unaminously
nominated him for Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth, and he
was elected and inaugurated January, 1906, under Governor Guild. He
had, however, served his party as a member of the Milford Republican
Town Committee, and of the Hopedale Town Committee. He was also
chairman of his Senatorial district committee, and was a member of the
Congressional district committee. He also served as chairman of the
Republican State Committee in 1892, and declined a unanimous re-election
in 1893, but served as a member of the committee for the three years
following. He was president of the Massachusetts Republican Club for
two years, and a member of the Club from its organization. The subject
of this sketch was re-elected lieutenant-governor for 1907 and 1908, and
served as governor in 1909 and 1910. In 191 1, he again became candidate
for the same office, but was defeated by Eugene N. Haas.
He served as a delegate from Massachusetts in the Republican
National Convention at St. Louis in 1896, and was made chairman of the
Massachusetts delegation. He. of all the delegates to that convention, made
the canvass on the question of making the platform decidedly for gold as
the unit of monetary measure, and through fifty sub-committees working
under his direction he secured a report that showed the standing of every
delegate in the convention on that important subject.
In 1900 he was Republican Elector for the eleventh Congressional
District of Massachusetts; chairman of the Massachusetts delegation to
the Nashville Exposition in 1897; served three years as lieutenant-Gov-
ernor, and is now serving his second year as Governor.
Mr. Draper was also a member of the Society of Colonial Wars,
Republican Club of Massachusetts, Society of the Sons of the Revolution,
Middlesex Club, Norfolk Club, Massachusetts Club. Somerset Club, Union
Club, New Algonquin Club, Exchange Club, Country Club, Home Market
Club, Hope Club (Providence), Metropolitan Club (New York), etc.
Mr. Draper married November 21, 1883, Nannie Bristovv, daughter of
the late General Benjamin Helm Bristow, of New York, who was Secretary
of the Treasury, under Grant, and candidate for the Presidency in 1876.
They had three children, Benjamin Helm Bristow, born February 28, 18S5;
Dorothy, born November 22, 1890; Eben S., Jr., born August 30, 1893.
^T^ l-y £r a- a^/ia-^r =i" 3r^-
-^6^e<A^A_CJ^c^ [/<J^.yJU^
OF THE UNITED STATES 289
GEORGE ALBERT DRAPER.
George Albert Draper was born in Hopedale, Worcester County,
Massachusetts, November 4, 1855, the second son of George and Hannah
(Thwing) Draper. He received his primary and secondary education in
his native town, and after a two years' course in mechanical engineermg
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, he entered the employ
of the firm of Geo. Draper & Son, and in 1877 was admitted a member of
the firm. He subsequently served as treasurer of the Hopedale Machine
Company.
In January, 1897, when the business of George Draper & Sons and
others was incorporated as the Draper Company, he was elected treasurer
of the corporation, which position he has continued to hold up to the present
time.
He married, November 6, 1890, Jessie, daughter of General William
Preston, of Kentuckv.
GEORGE OTIS DRAPER.
George Otis Draper, second son of General William F. Draper, was
born in Hopedale, Mass., July 14, 1867. His mother was Lila Warren Joy,
adopted daughter of the Hon. David Joy, of Nantucket, Mass., married
Captain William Franklin Draper, U. S. V., in September, 1862, when the
young captain was on leave of absence for four days by reason of promo-
tion from the twenty-fifth to the thirty-sixth Massachusetts volunteers.
(For ancestry see sketch of George Draper, Ibid.) George Otis Draper
was as a boy interested in mechanical drawing and was fond of working in
the shops of his fatlier when not attending school. He was a pupil in the
celebrated English and Classical School conducted by the Allen brothers, at
West Newton, Mass., and he went from this school to the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology where he was graduated in 1887, having taken a
mechanical engineering course. He then became a machinist in the Hope-
dale Works, and there learned the practical details of the business. He was
admitted a partner in the firm of George Draper & Sons on January i,
1889. He became an inventor as well as manufacturer of cotton machin-
ery and this adaptability to the wants of the business grew out of personal
application and private reflection. He invented over one hundred devices
which he patented, many of which were put into practical use in his
business, especially those applying to the perfection of the Northrop looms.
He served the town of Hopedale as Assessor from 1894, and was made a
member of the Hopedale Park Commission. He became a stockholder and
officer in at least a score of corporations organized to further the advance-
290 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
ment of textile manufacturing, mining, quarrying and the development of
patented inventions, giving to each much of his time and thought. This
work was in addition to his duties as secretary of the Draper Company,
the largest American builders of cotton machinery. He was elected to
membership in the Home Market Club, of Boston, organized by his grand-
father and of which his father was president for two years. He was also
a member of the Republican Club of Massachusetts, the New England
Cotton Manufacturers' Association, the American Inventors' Association,
the Society for Psychical Research ; the Algonquin, Puritan Athletic and
Automobile Clubs of Boston ; the Country Club of Brookline, Mass., the
Metropolitan Club, of Washington, D. C. ; the Technology Club, of Boston,
and Theti XI Graduate Club, of New York. He joined the fraternal associa-
tion of Knights of Pythias, founded in Washington, D. C, February 9, 1864.
On April 28, 1892, Mr. Draper married Lilly, daughter of Henry and
Lily (Braid) Duncan, of Lexington, Ky., and had three children, Elise
Allen Draper, George Otis Draper, Jr., and Henry Duncan Draper. The
marriage was annulled by divorce obtained in July, 1903. Mr. Draper was
the author of various technical pamphlets, including Facts and Figures
(1898); Textile Texts (1891); Labor-saving Looms (1904); Searching
for Truth (1902) and Still on the Search (1904), the latter work being
illustrated by drawings from his own pencil, the two volumes being in-
tended to give his theories on various theological doctrines, he being
greatly interested in liberal theology. He travelled extensively for re-
creation and information, and entered into many automobile contests,
winning several prizes and trophies. He was a liberal contributor to the
various philanthropic institutions and charities of Massachusetts, irrespec-
tive of denominational control. Mr. Draper served two terms as vice-
president of the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers, was a
member of the Board of Government of the American Civic Association,
and the Welfare Committee of the National Civic Federation.
In 1907, a change of policy was adopted by a majority of the Draper
Company directors, which ultimately led to the resignation of General
Draper and his two sons. George Otis Draper decided to make New York
City his future home, and being adverse to anything in the nature of a
competition with his former associates, he entered into other lines of in-
dustry, still giving liberal time to the development and introduction of
patented improvements. In 1908, he published a work on political economy,
which obtained very universal commendation from art critics.
OF THE UNITED STATES 291
WARREN WHITNEY DUTCHER.
Warren Whitney Butcher was born in Shaftsbury, Vermont, July 4,
1812, son of Peter and Lucy (Slye) Dutcher. His ancestors were among
the early Dutch settlers of Eastern New York. Warren Whitney Dutcher
obtained his education in the local district school during the few months m
each year that it was in session. At the age of thirteen he was employed as
bobbin boy in a small woolen mill in Shaftsbury. After several years'
experience in the woolen mill, at the age of nineteen, he obtained a position
in a cotton mill at North Bennington, Vermont. Later on he had charge
of the weaving in the Doty mill in that place. In 1846 he patented the
parallel shuttle motion, the first successful attempt in this direction. He
also made various improvements on speeders and other machines.
In 1 85 1 and 1852, in connection with his older brother, Elihu C.
Dutcher, he obtained patents on reciprocating loom temples using toothed
cylindrical rolls, and began their manufacture in North Bennington under
the firm name of E. & W. W. Dutcher. The great improvement made in
weaving by these temples attracted the attention of the Drapers, and in
1854 they purchased the interest of Elihu Dutcher in the patents and busi-
ness, and the partnership of W. W. Dutcher & Co. was formed to
manufacture the temples, E. D. & G. Draper acting as selling agents. In
May, 1856, this industry was transferred to Hopedale, Mass. In 1867, the
Dutcher Temple Company was incorporated, with Warren W. Dutcher as
agent, and he continued in this position until his death. During this
period he made and patented many improvements in loom temples ; he also
designed ingenious and accurate machines for use in their manufacture,
many of which are still in everyday use.
Recognizing the importance of good castings, Mr. Dutcher made it
one of the conditions of his removal to Hopedale that a foundry should be
built and castings made on the premises. The Hopedale Furnace Company
carried on a separate business in this line as a co-partnership, of which
Mr. Dutcher was a member, until 1867, when it was incorporated as
a stock company. From the time he began the construction of loom
temples he had entire charge of their manufacture up to the time of his
last illness, and the high quality of work produced bore evidence to the
thoroughness of his supervision.
Mr. Dutcher married, October 10, 1841, Malinda Amelia, daughter of
Lyman and Eleanor (Stearns) Tombs, of Hoosick, N. Y. Their children
were Charles Volney. born July 23, 1848, died October 25, 1848;
Frank Jerome, born July 21, 1850; and Grace Mary, born July 17,
1853. Mr. Dutcher died at Hopedale, January 26, 1880, and his wife died
February 9, if
292 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
FRANK JEROME DUTCHER.
•
Dutcher, Frank Jerome, was born at North Bennington, Vermont, July
21, 1850, the son of Warren Whitney and MaHnda AmeHa (Tombs)
Dutcher. He received his education in the pubhc schools of Hopedale and
Milford, and was graduated from the IMilford High School in 1868. In
September of that year he was engaged as office boy by the newly organized
firm of George Draper & Son. For many years, until 1896, when it merged
with the other Hopedale Companies, he served as treasurer of the Dutcher
Temple Company. He also became agent of the Hopedale Furnace Com-
pany and treasurer of the Hopedale Machine Screw Company. On the
formation of the Draper Company, Mr. Dutcher was chosen assistant agent;
in 1907 vice-president, and in 1909 president, which position he still holds.
Mr. Dutcher married, January 27, 1877, Martha Maria Grimwood, of
Pawtucket, R. I. Their children were Warren Whitney, born August 29,
1880; Daisy Grimwood, born November 28, 1881 ; and Ruth Collyer, born
April 21, 1887.
JOSEPH BUBIER BANCROFT.
Joseph Bubier Bancroft, one of ten children of Samuel and Mary
(Bubier) Bancroft, was born at Uxbridge, Massachusetts, October 3, 1821,
his father being a native of Marblehead, who during the War of 1812 was
taken prisoner by the British and confined in the infamous Dartmouth
prison.
His educational opportunities were limited to the primitive schools of
the district system. At an early age he went to work in one of the mills in
the neighborhood, but preferring mechanical pursuits, served an apprentice-
ship at the machinist's trade. He was employed in Woonsocket, R. I., Med-
way, Uxbridge, and elsewhere, for various lengths of time, and in 1847
joined the Hopedale Community at Hopedale, Mass. When the Community
gave up its business interests, Mr. Bancroft associated himself with Ebenezer
D. and George Draper, his brothers-in-law, under the firm name of Hope-
dale Machine Company, to manufacture various improvements in cotton
machinery, Mr. Bancroft having charge of the works. After the incorpora-
tion of the company in 1867, he was made superintendent, which position
he held for many years.
In 1896, the business was incorporated as the Draper Company, and
Mr. Bancroft was elected vice-president, officiating continuously as such
until July, 1907, when, upon the retirement of General Draper, the subject
of this sketch became president.
Mr. Bancroft was an unassuming man of quiet tastes and confined most
of his attention to business interests. He never sought public office.
OF THE UNITED STATES 293
although in 1877-78-79 he served as selectman and represented the town
of Alilford in the Legislature in 1864. In 1875, Mr. Bancroft became and
remained until 1881 an engineer of the Fire Department. He rendered
service on the directorate of the Home National Bank of Milford for ten
years, and was associated with the management of the Milford Gas Light
Company, as president, which position he resigned May 26, 1909, on ac-
count of his failing health. In all official connections Mr. Bancroft was
held in the highest esteem, for his ability as well as his trustworthiness. A
member of Montgomery Lodge, A. F. and A. M. of Milford, Mt. Lebanon
R. A. Chapter, and Milford Commandry, he was in all these orders, on
account of special favors rendered, voted an honorary life member.
Though extremely unostentatious in his giving, Mr. Bancroft was very
charitable, and during his life benefited many in the community where he
lived. Coming from the ranks of the laboring class, he appreciated the
needs and trials of the ordinary workman, and his liberality to such was
unbounded. To him also the town of Hopedale is indebted for its
magnificent granite library building, which was erected to his wife's memory
in 1898, he having married in 1844 Sylvia Willard. daughter of Benjamin
and Anna (Mowry) Thwing, of Uxbridge. Ten children were born to Mr.
and Mrs. Bancroft, five of whom at this writing are still alive, viz., Eben
D., vice-president and purchasing agent of the Draper Company; Anna M.,
unmarried ; Gertrude, wife of \\''alter P. Winsor, of Fairhaven, Mass.,
president of the First National Bank of New Bedford; Lilla J., wife of
H. W. Bracken, of Hopedale, one of the Draper Co. superintendents; and
Lura B., widow of Charles M. Day, who at the time of his decease was
general superintendent of the Draper Company. Mrs. Bancroft died in
1898.
At the advanced age of eighty-eight years, Mr. Bancroft died October
25, 1909.
EBEN DRAPER BANCROFT.
Eben D. Bancroft, son of Joseph Bubier and Sylvia W. (Thwing)
Bancroft, was born in Hopedale, ]\Iass., August 27, 1847. He was educated
in the public schools of Milford and in a private school at Providence, R. I.
In 1866 he was engaged by his uncles, E. D. and G. Draper, to take charge
of their office and accounts. In 1868 he succeeded to the same position
with George Draper & Son and had continuous charge of this branch of the
business during the various changes The office force during this period has
increased from three persons to nearly one hundred. ]\Ir. Bancroft served
as a director in the Hopedale Machine Company, and when the Draper Com-
294 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
pany was organized he was chosen purchasing agent. In 1909 he was
elected vice-president.
Mr. Bancroft married, September 9, 1874, LeHa Coburn, daughter of
Alonzo and EHza Curtiss (Jones) Coburn. Their children were Alice
Coburn, born July 3, 1876, and Joseph Bubier, born February 26, 1880,
who was graduated from Harvard University in the class of 1903, and
became assistant treasurer of the Portland Iron & Steel Company, rolling-
mill at Portland, Maine.
PAUL WHITING OR WHITIN.
Paul Whiting or Whitin was a descendant in the fifth generation
of Nathaniel Whiting, who came from Norfolk County, England, to Lynn
(then Saugus) Massachusetts Bay Colony, about 1635, and after ten
years' residence in Lynn he removed to Dedham where he married Hannah,
only daughter of John Dwight, who with his wife Hannah immigrated
to Dedham, Tvlassachusetts Bay Colony, from England in 1634. Nathaniel's
great-grandson, Nathaniel Whiting, lived on the boundary line between
Dedham and Roxbury, and married Sarah Draper. Here their son, Paul
Whiting, was born December 3, 1767. In 1769 Nathaniel Whiting died and
his widow married, in 1770, James Prentice, a farmer of Baylies Hill,
Uxbridge, and in 1776 they removed to Sutton, where Paul was brought
up on his stepfather's farm and attended school. He worked on the farm.
At the age of fourteen he began to learn the trade of blacksmith at North-
bridge, and served an apprenticeship of nearly seven years with Jesse White.
He then worked for four years as a journeyman blacksmith. December
3, 1793, he married Betsey, daughter of Colonel James Fletcher, who
had married a daughter of Ezra Wood of Upton, who had in 1771 pur-
chased a farm and iron-producing furnace and forge on the Mumford River
in Northbridge. They produced iron from the ore. Paul Whiting worked
in his father-in-law's saw-and-grist mill for one year after his marriage.
He then worked at his trade as a blacksmith for one year, when he
bought out the business and conducted it on his own account. He soon
after operated a small forge owned by Colonel Fletcher on the south side
of the Mumford River, the drop-hammer being operated by water-power.
About this time he was town clerk, and in signing his name dropped the
final "g." He continued to serve as town clerk for thirteen successive
years. On the privilege, which afterwards supplied power to the Whitin
Machine Works, he built in 1809 a cotton mill operated by the Northbridge
Manufacturing Company, of which he was the principal stockholder. This
was the third cotton mill erected in the Blackstone Valley above Paw-
tucket, the mill of .Mmy, Brown and Slaters having been built in 1807 at
OF THE UNITED STATES 295
Slaterville, R. I., and the first mill at South ]\Ieaclow, Mass., operated by
the Blackstone Company in 1808. The original mill erected by Paul \Miitin
was built of wood and was equipped with fifteen hundred spindles. Pre-
vious to and after building this mill, Paul Whitin was engaged largely in
the making of heavy hoes used by Negro slaves on Southern plantations,
and this trade was largely increased by the embargo caused by the suspen-
sion of commerce with England during the War of 1812. The Northbridge
mill was sold in 1824, and meantime in 1815 Mr. Whitin had entered into a
partnership with Colonel Fletcher and his two sons, under the firm name
of Whitin and Fletchers, and erected a second cotton mill of three
hundred spindles on the site of the old forge for the manufacture of yarns,
and the business of this mill was continued until 1826, when Mr. WHiitin,
who owned a half interest, purchased the other half from the Fletchers
and formed a partnership with his sons, Paul Whitin, Jr., and John C.
Whitin, under the style of P. Whitin & Sons, and they erected a new mill
of fifteen hundred spindles on the site of the mill of three hundred spindles.
Paul Whitin, Sr., invested the capital, but took no part in the manage-
ment of those mills.
Paul and Betsey (Fletcher) Whitin had ten children, of whom eight
lived to maturity, and five, Paul, Jr., John C, Charles P., James F. and
Margaret F. (Whitin) Abbot, survived their mother, who had been a
widow for thirty-seven years, and for thirty-four years had been a member
of the firm of P. Whitin & Sons. She died July 2, 1868.
Paul Whitin died at his home in Northbridge, February 8, 1831, in his
sixty-fourth year.
PAUL WHITIN, JR.
Paul Whitin, Jr., was born in Northbridge, Worcester County, Mass.,
February 5, 1800; son of Colonel Paul and Betsey (Fletcher) Whitin.
(See sketch of his father. Ibid.) His school attendance was limited to the
few months each year of the district school term, a short term at a
school in Amsterdam, N. Y., and two terms at the Leicester Academy.
From his tenth year, when not at school, he worked in the mill and on
the farm of his father, and when eighteen he went to Boston as clerk in
the drygoods store of James Beaver, where he remained up to February,
1821, when, with a fellow-clerk named Lee, he removed to New York City
and opened the drygoods store of Lee & Whitin on Maiden Lane, then a
dry goods centre. In 1826 he returned to Northbridge, Mass., and with
his father and younger brother, John C. Whitin, formed the firm of P.
Whitin & Sons, cotton jnanufacturers. He, bv reason of his mercantile
296 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
experience, took charge of the store and purchase of supplies for the cotton
mill and the selling of the yarn and cloth produced. His father died in
1831, and on the reconstruction of the firm, when his mother became a
partner, he continued to hold the same position in charge of the mercantile
department, and this service covered a period of thirty-eight years. On
the dissolution of the firm in 1864, and the division of the property, he
received the cotton mill at Rockdale and the mill privileges at Riverdale,
where a cotton mill was built from the assets of the old firm, and in 1780
he became president of the newly incorporated Paul Whitin Manufacturing
Company, formerly the Rockdale Mill. He held various town offices and
took a working interest in public affairs. He was made a trustee for
numerous estates, and his fidelity as trustee was as unimpeachable as his
conduct of his own personal afl'airs.
Mr. Whitin married, August 22, 1822, Sarah R. Chapin, of Uxbridge.
His son, Charles E. Whitin, continued the business of his father after his
sudden death; another son, Henry E. Whitin, was for many years a cotton
merchant in New York City. His daughter, Sarah, married Mr. Orvis,
of Manchester, Vt., and his daughter, Anna L., in 1910 was still unmarried.
He died at his home, February 7, 1884.
JOHN CRANE WHITIN.
John Crane Whitin, fourth son of Colonel Paul and Betsey (Fletcher)
Whitin, was born in Northbridge, Worcester County, Mass., March i,
1807. He attended the public schools of his native town until twelve years
old, working between the summer and winter terms of schools in the picker-
room of the Northbridge Manufacturing Co. owned by his father. When
twelve years of age he was placed in the repair-room of the mill, where
he worked three years, and this experience was an apprenticeship to the
business in which he achieved his success as proprietor of the Whitin
Machine Works. From 1822 to 1825 he was employed in the drygoods
store of his brother, Paul Whitin, Jr., in New York City. He returned to
Northbridge in 1825, when a partnership was formed betvreen his father,
his brother, Paul Whitin, Jr., and himself, as manufacturers of cotton yarns
and cloth under the firm name of P. Whitin & Sons. They erected a new
mill on the old Whitin & Fletcher mill site. Paul Whitin, Jr., being in
charge of the financial and mercantile department, and John C. ^Vhitin of
the manufacturing and mechanical department.
In an ell attached to the cotton mill the machine shop was located,
and in this room the necessary repairs to the machinery were made. Mr.
r\^
x^ ^,cv
OF THE UNITED STATES 297
Whitin doing the work with the aid of one assistant. This department
gave birth to the Whitin Machine Works. He had been early brought
to a knowledge of the inadequate construction of the machines in use in
the cotton mill, and the constant need of repairs, and he directed his
leisure time to the improvements needed. In fact, when a boy in the
picker-room, he had discovered the defects in the "scutcher" when applied
to cotton, long baled and necessarily matted, and his first invention, patented
in 1832, was to overcome this difficulty. While working on this invention,
Colonel Paul Whitin died and the business was reorganized, his widow
and three of the sons, Paul, John C. and Charles P., becoming equal
partners. The old firm name, P. Whitin & Sons, was retained and the
old Northbridge Mill was repurchased and put into operation. The pat-
ented picker and lappers perfected by John C. Whitin attracted the at-
tention of other manufacturers. The firm began to make machines for sale,
and the small room, 20x40 feet, in which this work was done, became
the nucleus of the Whitin Machine Works. At first the machinery was
crude and incapable of producing such accurate and finished workmanship
as the works subsequently turned out, but they were the best the market
aflforded, and met with a ready sale. The successive machines displayed
more complete workmanship. For many years the Whitin Works turned
out most of the pickers and lappers used in the United States, and Mr.
Whitin was encouraged to apply his inventive genius to other cotton mill
machinery in the same line, and it soon embraced cards, card grinders,
doublers, railway heads, drawing frames, ring frames, spoolers, warpers,
dressers and looms, the works finally producing all the machinery used
in a cotton mill except fly- frames and mules. In 1847 a large brick shop
was built, 102x306 feet, as a machine shop. In i860 Mr. Whitin purchased
the Holyoke Machine Works on his own account. This establishment had
been engaged in the manufacture of turbine wheels and of cotton and
miscellaneous machinery, and Mr. Whitin made the business profitable.
Owing to the distance of Holyoke from Whitinsville, his home, he decided,
in 1864, to dispose of it and remove such machinery as he needed to
the Whitinsville works, and the Hadley Company purchased the property
and transformed it into a manufactory for the production of cotton thread
and yarn. The joint business of P. Whitin & Sons as manufacturers of
cotton goods and of cotton machinery was divided in 1864. The cotton
manufactory had in forty years increased from 1,500 spindles to a capacity
of 50,000 spindles. They had added, in 1840. the old Uxbridge cotton
mill erected by Robert Rogerson. of Boston, and subsequently they built
the Rockdale Cloth Mill in Northbridge, and, in 1845, erected the large
stone mill at Whitinsville. In the division of the business in 1864, the three
brothers, Paul, Charles P. and James F. Whitin, became owners of the
cotton mills, and John C. Whitin, the sole proprietor of the machine works.
He enlarged the works by a large brick building with an ell, and in 1865
298 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
built a new foundry 100x120 feet on the site of the old Xorthbridge factory.
The increased demands for cotton machinery were met by continued en-
-largement of the plants in both buildings, and by change in the character
of the equipment of tools and macliinery. The working force of two men,
who were the sole makers of the first machines, had been increased to
over seven hundred men, and the improved machine tools introduced had
increased the product of each man, making it equal to that of three men
using the old-time tools. In 1870 the business of John C. Whitin was
organized as a joint-stock corporation under the name of the Whitin
Machine Works, with a capital of $600,000. John C. Whitin was elected
president; Josiah Lasell, treasurer and general manager; and Gustavus
E. Taft, superintendent.
Mr. Whitin filled various offices of trust, being director of the National
Bank of Whitinsville, president of the Whitinsville Savings Bank and
director of the Providence and Worcester Railroad. He also served as
presidential elector in 1876, elected on the Hayes and Wheeler ticket.
Mr. Whitin married. May 30, 1831, Catherine H. Leland, of Sutton,
Mass., granddaughter of Silence Dwight, who was a great-granddaughter
of John and Hannah Dwight, the Dedham immigrants, 1634, who were
thus the common ancestors of both Mr. and Mrs. Whitin. Their only son
who attained to manhood, John Maltby Whitman, was employed in his
father's works and died October 22, 1872. Their daughter Jane became
the wife of Josiah Lasell (Ibid.). Mrs. Whitin died Jan. 31, 1873, and
Mr. Whitin married Jan. 20. 1875. Sarah Elizabeth Pratt, of Hopkinton.
Their only son, John C. Whitin, died in infancy.
John Crane Whitin died at his home in Whitinsville, Mass., April
22, 1882.
CHARLES PINCKNEY WHITIN.
Charles Pinckney Whitin was born in Northbridge, Worcester
County, Mass., Aug. 6, 1809; the fifth son of Colonel Paul and Betsey
(Fletcher) Whitin. (See sketch of his father. Ibid.) His education was
received in the schools of the town and in the academy at Leicester.
It was such that, when but sixteen, he taught school accceptably in the
stone schoolhouse, near Plummers' Comer. He early worked in the
cotton mill in which his father was interested, and here learned the rudi-
ments of the art of cotton manufacture, in which he afterwards became so
proficient. He continued with his father and brothers until his twenty-first
year, when he went to Willimantic, Conn., to fit up and take charge of a
cotton mill. Havine been called home the next year bv his father's sickness.
OF THE UNITED STATES 299
he remained in his native town, and became identified with and most active
in its growth and prosperity. The same year, 183 1, after his father's death,
he became an active member of the firm of P. Whitin & Sons, in which he
had charge of the cotton manufacturing department, and in this he became
an expert and an authority. He superintended the erection of the stone
mill in Whitinsville in 1845, the enlargement of the North Uxbridge Mill
in 1847-8 and the erection of the mill in Rockdale in 1856-7. He was
largely interested in the improvement of the water power of the Mumford
River, devising and building the dams and reservoirs by which the surplus
water of the spring was stored for later use. Whenever his brother,
John C. Whitin, who had charge of the machine shop, was absent, this
care devolved upon him, and he had practical management of the shop from
April, i860, to January, 1864, while his brother was engaged at Holyoke.
When the firm of P. Whitin & Sons was dissolved, Jan. i, 1864, Mr. Whitin
took the cotton mills in Whitinsville and East Douglas and carried on the
business of cotton manufacture, having associated his two older sons,
Edward and William H., with him. In 1865, with his brother, James P.,
Whitin, he built the mill in Linwood, and in 1881 he purchased the cotton
mill in Saundersville, Mass. At the time of his decease he was a director
of the Douglas Axe Company and president of the Whitinsville National
and Savings Banks.
Mr. Whitin was selectman of his town in 1852, and served as repre-
sentative of his district in the General Court in 1859. He was affiliated with
the Congregational Church for sixty-five years, and was deeply and in-
telligently interested in the great missionary and benevolent enterprises
of his day to which he was a continuous and liberal contributor.
Mr. Whitin married Sarah J. Halliday Oct. 2t, 1834, and she survived
him with four sons, three of whom, Edward, William H. and Arthur F.,
were associated with him in the business, which they continued after his
death until June 4, 1893, when William H. died, after which it was con-
tinued by the two remaining partners, Edward and Arthur F. His son,
Lewis P., was a commission merchant in New York. His only daughter,
Helen L., married George L. Gibbs, and died May 9, 1885.
Mr. Whitin died at Northbridge. I\Iass., Aug. 29, 1887.
JAMES FLETCHER WHITIN.
James Fletcher Whitin was born in Northbridge, Mass., December
21, 1814; the youngest son of Colonel Paul and Betsey (Fletcher) Whitin.
(See sketch of his father. Ibid.) He was educated in the public schools
of Northbridge, and the academies of Uxbridge, Leicester, Munson and
300 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
I
Amherst. He began his active business Hfe in the counting-room of P.
Whitin & Sons; he was admitted as a member of the firm in 1847, and
assumed entire charge of the financial department, retaining it up to the
time of the dissokition of the firm, January i, 1864. In the division of the
property, he received the cotton mill at North Uxbridge, and in 1866, with
his brother, Charles Pinckney Whitin, he built the cotton mill at L.inwood,
known as the "Linwood Mill." When tlie Whitins obtained control of the
Uxbridge cotton mill. May 8, 1849, he was made clerk of the corporation ;
at the meeting held May 10, 1864, he was elected treasurer and clerk ; and at
the meeting held May 9, 1899, he was elected president, treasurer and
clerk.
Mr. Whitin married. July 23, 1842, Patience H., daughter of Ebenezer
and Deborah (Fisher) Saunders, of Grafton. Their son, George M.
Whitin, became a director and superintendent of the Uxbridge Cotton Mills
May 9, 1878, and died suddenly January 24, 1883. Another son, Albert
H. Whitin, became a director of the Uxbridge Cotton Mills in 1887. James
Fletcher Whitin died at his home in Northbridge, Mass., March 2, 1902.
CHARLES E. WHITIN.
Charles E. Whitin was born in Uxbridge, Mass., Sept. 13, 1823;
son of Paul, Jr., and Sarah (Chapin) Whitin, grandson of Colonel Paul and
Betsey (Fletcher) Whitin. Charles E. Whitin was a pupil in the public
schools and the academy at Uxbridge, subsequent to which he learned the
business of manufacturing cotton in the Whitinsville Cotton Mill, and was
not there long before he was advanced to the position of overseer of the
carding-room. When P. Whitin & Sons purchased the cotton mill property
at North Uxbridge, Charles Whitin was made superintendent of the mill,
and when the firm of P. Whitin & Sons was dissolved, Jan. i, 1864. he trans-
ferred his services to the Paul Whitin Manufacturing Company, then
known as the Rockdale Mill, and, on its incorporation in 1870, he was
made treasurer of the Paul Whitin Manufacturing Company; on the death
of his father, Feb. 7, 1884, he succeeded as president of the corporation,
and held the office up to the time of his death.
Mr. Whitin held important town, county and state offices, including
those of selectman, justice of the peace, and state senator. He was also
a director of the Whitinsville National Bank, and a trustee of the Whitins-
ville Savings Bank.
He married Adeline C, daughter of Oliver C. and Eliza (Jenkins)
Swift, of Falmouth, Mass., and of their children three survived their
father: Henry Thomas Whitin (Ibid.), treasurer of the Paul Whitin
OF THE UNITED STATES 301
Manufacturing Company; G. Marston Whitin, treasurer of the Whitin
Machine Works and president of the Paul Whitin Manufacturing Com-
pany, and EHza Swift, wife of Paul Whitin Abbott, of Boston. Charles
E. Whitin died in Whitinsville, Mass., Feb. 8, 1890.
WILLIAM HALLIDAY WHITIN.
William Halliday Whitin was born in Whitinsville, Mass., Sept.
5, 1841, the second son of Charles Pinckney and Sarah (Halliday) Whitin,
grandson of Colonel Paul and Betsey (Fletcher) Whitin.
William H. Whitin attended the public schools of Northbridge, was
prepared for college at Easthampton, Mass., and was graduated from
Yale College, A. B., 1863. He spent two years in post-graduate studies
at home and one in travel in Europe, and on his return to Massachusetts
he determined to take up the business of his father, that of a cotton manu-
facturer. He spent two years in the careful study of the economy of
production, the question of machinery and of the wages and the waste and
natural losses in conducting the business under prevalent methods. In 1868
he assumed the superintendence of the Whitinsville Cotton Mills, and con-
ducted the business for twenty-five years with profit and to the entire
satisfaction of the other stockholders, and also of the employees. He
was interested as a stockholder and director in the Saunders Cotton Mill,
Saundersville, Mass., of which he was president at the time of his death,
and in the Linwood Mill, at Northbridge, erected by his father, Charles
P., and his uncle, James F., and conducted by his father, his brother
Edward and himself. He was also a director of the Whitinsville National
Bank, and a trustee of the Whitinsville Savings Bank. He served his na-
tive town as a member of the school committee for twenty-nine years,
and as selectman for several years, being chairman of the board for
four years. He was a member of the board of directors of the New
England Cotton Manufacturers' Association, and as he always attended
the annual meetings, by his advice and council he secured the esteem and
confidence of his fellow-manufacturers of New England.
He died at his home in Whitinsville, ]\Iass., June 4, 1893.
HENRY THOMAS WHITIN.
Henry Thomas Whitin was born in North LTxbridge, Mass., Dec.
15, 1854; son of Charles E. and Adeline (Swift) Whitin, grandson of Paul
Whitin, Jr., Charles E. Whitin, son of Paul, Jr., and Sarah (Chapin)
Whitin, and was married, Oct. 12, 1853, to Adeline Cabot, daughter of
302 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Oliver and Eliza Jenkins Swift, of Falmouth, and a descendant from
John Robinson, a passenger of the Mayflower in 1520.
The subject of this sketch, Henry Thomas Whitin, was instructed in
the public and high schools of North Uxbridge and was graduated from
Highland Military Academy, Worcester, Mass., in 1872. He became an
apprentice in the Whitin Machine Works, owned and conducted by his
uncle, J. C. Whitin (this belonged to Mr. J. C. Whitin alone), and this was
followed by practical experience in the cotton mills of the Paul Whitin
Manufacturing Company (Rockdale Mills), Northbridge, of which his
father was president and manager. He was rapidly advanced to the posi-
tions of foreman, superintendent and agent, and was treasurer in 1906, his
brother, G. Marston Whitin, being president of the corporation.
Mr. Whitin attended the Rockdale Congregational Church. He became
a prominent member of the Masonic Fraternity, a Knights Templar, a mem-
ber of the Republican Club of Massachusetts, of the Home Market Club
of Boston, of the Xational Association of Manufacturers of New York,
the Manufactuiers' Club of New York, the New York Athletic Club,
Tatonic Country Club, the Worcester Club of Worcester and the Country
Club of Grafton.
Mr. Whitin married, Jan. i, 1876, Fannie Cora, daughter of Scott
and Mary (Lovett) Berry, of Worcester. Five children were born of
this marriage, all of whom were living in 191 1.
GUSTAVUS E. TAFT.
Gustavus Elzaplen Taft was born in Peacham, \^t., August 29,
1829; son of Cyrus and Lucinda (Morse) Taft, and a descendant of
Robert Taft, who was born in 1640, probably in Scotland ; came from
England to Massachusetts Bay Colony with his wife, Sarah, and settled in
Braintree in 1675; removed to Mendon in 1680 and died in 1725. Cyrus
Taft removed with his family to Northbridge, Mass., in 1839, and his
son attended the public schools of the town and the academy at Uxbridge.
In 1846, at the age of seventeen, Gustavus E. Taft entered the Whitin
Machine Shop as an apprentice, and he there found full scope for the
development of his mechanical genius. In i860 John C. Whitin made him
superintendent of the Holyoke Machine Shops, and he returned to Whitins-
ville in 1864 to become superintendent of the Whitin Machine Shop,
organized upon the dissolution of the firm of P. Whitin & Sons, with
which firm he had learned his trade. He was identified with the extensive
enlargement of the machine works, and was largely responsible for the
growth and development of the business, being an excellent organizer
^^^
y^^L^t
r.^
OF THE UNITED STATES 303
of labor and manager of men. His mechanical skill applied to the tools
used in the shops greatly increased their efficiency, and his inventions and
improvements in machines manufactured, especially the cards, spinning-
frames and looms used by cotton manufacturers, added largely to the
reputation and patronage of the works. July 18, 1882, he patented the
"Whitin Gravity Spindle," which he and Henry F. Woodmancy had in-
vented, and patents were also obtained in England, France, Germany and
Holland. This invention greatly increased the producing capacity of the
spindle, which came into general use in all parts of the world where
cotton is manufactured. In 1884 Mr. Taft became agent of the Whitin
Machine Works corporation, and had the active management of the large
business up to the time of his death. Mr. Taft married, November 8,
1855, Ruth L. Lamb, of Clinton, Me., and they had six children, who,
with the mother, survived him. He died quite suddenly at his home in
Whitinsville, Mass., June 24, 1888. Cyrus A. Taft, his oldest son, was
appointed to the position held by Gustavus E. Taft, and held the same
until 1904, at which time he gave up active business. He died February 6,
1908.
JOSIAH LASELL.
Josiah Lasell was born in Schoharie, Schoharie County, New York,
Aug. 6, 1825, son of Chester and Nancy (Manning) Lasell. He was pre-
pared for college at the Schoharie Academy, and was graduated from
Williams College, A. B., 1844. He then studied law but, instead of seeking
admittance to the bar, began teaching in the celebrated boys' school con-
ducted by Prof. Piquet in Brooklyn, N. Y. From this school he went to
Springier Institute, New York City, remaining several years. In 1852, with
his elder brother. Prof. Edward Lasell, of Williams College, and his
brother-in-law. Prof. G. W. Briggs, he aided in incorporating the Lasell
Seminary at Auburndale, Mass., a school of high grade for young women.
Soon after beginning the work. President Edward Lasell, the founder, died,
and Josiah Lasell became joint proprietor with Professor Briggs, and he
continued in this work up to i860. Meantime, he had married, June 5,
1855, Jane, the only daughter of John C. Whitin, of Whitinsville, Mass.,
and in i860 his father-in-law called him to his assistance in the conduct
of the machine works he had purchased in Holyoke, Mass., where he re-
mained until January, 1854, when Mr. Whitin sold the works in Holyoke
and became sole proprietor of the machine works at Whitinsville. Mr.
Lasell, too, went to Whitinsville to take charge of the books and accounts,
and to give such other assistance to Mr. Whitin as he might need in his
declining years. In 1870, when the machine works were incorporated, Mr.
Lasell was made the treasurer of the corporation, and, at the same time, he
shared with ]\Ir. Whitin the care and responsibility of the office of president.
304 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
which the enfeebled health of his father-in-law made necessary. In 1882
Mr. Whitin died, and the directors at once elected Mr. Lasell president
of the corporation, and he also continued to serve as treasurer up to
January, 1886. It was largely under his inspiration and direction that the
expensive additions to the works were carried on, and his success as a
business man was as great as had been his grasp of the problem of teaching
the young. In each of his enterprises he took wide and far-reaching views,
and he believed in large accomplishments and in the possibilities of the
future. He was also a master of details, and, in school or factory, he
knew just what to do in an emergency and how to avoid confusion or
.panic. In public affairs he was placed in varied offices of trust and
responsibility, especially in financial trusts involving the welfare of widows
and minor children as affected by the settlement of estates.
Mr. Lasell left a widow and two sons, Chester Whitin Lasell and
Josiah Manning Lasell, and two daughters, Catharine W., who married G.
Marston Whitin, the treasurer of the Whitin Machine Works, and Jennie
L., who married Dr. Ogden Backus, of Rochester, N. Y.
He died suddenly at his home in \MiitinsviIle, I\Iass., March 15, 1886.
GEORGE CROMPTOX.
George Crompton was born at Holcombe, near Bury, Lancashire, Eng-
land, March 23, 1829. He was the son of William and Sarah (Low)
Crompton, came to New England with his parents in 1839, and was edu-
cated in the public schools of Taunton, Worcester, and at Millbury Academy.
For a time he served as bookkeeper for his father, and, after his
father's failure, was employed for a year in the Colt Pistol Factory at
Hartford, Conn. Refusing an advantageous offer of advancement in this
concern, he succeeded, after a personal visit to Washington, in getting an
extension of his father's patent for seven years. He then formed a
partnership with Merrill E. Furbush, and in 185 1 the new firm started the
manufacture of looms in the Merrifield buildings in Worcester.
The first looms this new firm built were (like the looms made by those
who manufactured under licenses granted by his father, William Cromp-
ton) narrow looms; that is, they were looms of about forty-eight-inch reed
space. These looms ran at a speed of forty-five picks per minute, that is,
forty-five weft or cross threads were woven every minute. In 1857 Mr.
Crompton constructed and patented a broad loom, nearly double the width
of the old loom, and he demonstrated that this new loom could be run at
what was then considered the extraordinary speed of eighty-five picks per
minute. This was a revolutionary improvement. The production of the
loom had been quadrupled, for both the width and speed were doubled.
On August I, 1859, the firm of Furbush & Crompton was dissolved
-i
Z-^tyi^KT/
^^/^\^
OF THE UNITED STATES 305
with the understanding that the territory covered by the patents owned by
the firm should be divided, so that J\Ir. Crompton would hold the New
England States and New York, while the remainder of the United States
should belong to Mr. Furbush.
During 1861-65 IMr. Crompton added to his business of manufacturing-
looms that of making tools for the manufacture of gim stocks, which
were sold to gun makers, but at the end of the Civil War the entire resources
of the works were again directed to the construction of weaving machinery.
He took out over 100 patents for improvements on looms and for devices
outside of his own business, likewise securing numerous patents in Europe.
He exhibited his loom at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, where he
obtained a medal, and at the Paris Exposition in 1867, where all the leading-
manufacturers of Europe were represented, he received a gold medal.
Mr. Crompton in the late seventies introduced the Keighley dobby
into this country. With Mr. Horace Wyman, who was associated with
him, he improved this harness motion considerably, simplifying it and
altering its position (which on English looms had always been in the
centre of the arch) to the end of the arch, where it could be repaired or
fixed more easily, and also getting rid of the annoyance of having the oil
drop from this mechanism on the warp in the loom. With Mr. Wyman
also, he invented and improved the well-known Crompton gingham loom,
which has since then become the standard gingham loom of this country.
Mr. Crompton was actively interested in civic and public afifairs, and
served the city of Worcester as a member of the Council, 1860-1 : as an
alderman, 1863-64. It was largely owing to his eflforts that the soldiers'
monument, designed by Randolph Rogers, was placed in the public park.
Mr. Crompton married, Jan. 9, 1853, Mary Christiana, daughter of Charles
Pratt, of Hartford, Conn., and had twelve children. He died at Worcester,
Mass., Dec. 29, 1886.
WILLIAM CROMPTON.
William Crompton. son of Thomas and Mary (Dawson) Crompton,
was born in Preston, Lancashire, England, Sept. 10, 1806. He was a
practical weaver both by hand and power, an excellent cloth designer and
an admirable mechanic. While still a young man he was made superintend-
ent of the cotton mills at Ramsbottom-on-the-Irwell, Lancashire, where he
gained a wide experience in the manufacture of cotton; his natural in-
ventive talents evincing themselves in the improvements which he made
on the machinery in this mill.
In 1836, at the age of thirty, he came to the LTnited States in search
of wider opportunities, and entered the employ of Messrs. Crocker and
Richmond, at Taunton, Mass. Here, having been requested to weave a
3o6 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
certain pattern of goods, which the looms in use there were not fitted to
produce, he invented and made a loom of extremely novel design, in that
it was the first loom in which the figure or pattern to be produced could be
made up on what is known as a chain. This chain is a series of bars or
lags, held together by links, so as to form a chain of bars, hence the name.
On these bars or lags are rollers or pins, placed in such position that as
the chain revolves it lifts, at certain predetermined intervals, levers, which
in turn cause the harnesses to be raised in such order that the desired
design or pattern is produced upon the loom.
The loom invented by William Crompton overcame two great dis-
advantages of the cam loom — the limitation of harness capacity and
the necessity of changing the cams in order to change the pattern, because
its construction made it possible in a very limited space to control and
operate a great number of harnesses, and made it extremely easy to change
from one pattern to another. Finally, by William Crompton's invention,
any harness could be raised or lowered at any time, and exceedingly com-
plicated patterns could for the first time be woven by power. Another inno-
vation in this loom was that the warp was made to move up and down, this
double motion giving more room for the shuttle to fly from side to side. For
this invention Mr. Crompton received a patent numbered 491 and dated No-
vember 23, 1837. Owing, however, to the general depression of the textile
industry here, he went to England and obtained letters patent, and his looms
were later put into operation in that country.
In 1839 he returned to this country, with his wife, Sarah (Low) and
his family, including his son George, and settled in Taunton. About this
time the ]\Iiddlesex Mills, of Lowell, wishing to manufacture a cloth similar
to a piece which liad been made by hand in France, requested Mr. Crompton
to come to Lowell. Mr. Crompton accepted this invitation and applied
his patented fancy harness motion to the looms in the mill, and demon-
strated that with this motion the desired pattern could be woven. Thus, in
1840, at the Middlesex Mills in Lowell, fancy woolens were, for the first
time, zvoven by power. Mr. Crompton shortly after this entered into arrange-
ments with Phelps & Bickford, makers of plain looms in Worcester, to man-
ufacture his looms under a royalty, during the life of the patent, he himself
operating a cotton mill in Northville, now a part of Worcester. This mill
being destroyed by fire in 1844, Mr. Crompton went to Millbury, where he
engaged in the manufacture of cotton and woolen cloth. A few-years later,
becoming financially embarrassed, he retired from business and moved to
Hartford, Conn. The great success that his son George made of the Cromp-
ton looms brought about many imitations, especially in Continental Europe.
All fancy power looms, excepting only Jacquard looms, still use the pattern
chain originally invented by William Crompton, thus being in their most
essential mechanism Crompton looms.
Mr. Crompton died at \\'indsor. Conn.. IVIay i, 1891.
OF THE UNITED STATES 307
LUCIUS JAMES KNOWLES.
Lucius James Knowles, inventor, was born in Hardwick, Massachu-
setts, July 2, 1819, son of Simeon Knowles, a prosperous farmer. He
was brought up on his father's farm, sent to the public school, and in
due time to the Leicester Academy, where he completed three terms, and,
when seventeen years of age, he found employment as clerk in a general
store in Shrewsbury, and in 1838, although not of age, he was admitted
to partnership. His leisure hours were devoted to perfecting various in-
ventions, including musical instruments, steam engines, and a safety steam
boiler feed regulator, which he perfected in 1840, and on which he obtained
a patent. In 1840 he disposed of his interest in the Shrewsbury store and
devoted himself to mechanical studies and experiments. He built an elec-
tric engine, and, in 1842, turned his attention to the development of the
science of photography, invented a camera and material for the use of
photographers, and for the purpose of combining business with study, he
operated a photographic gallery for two years, selling it out in 1844. He
then engaged in the manufacture of thread at New Worcester, Mass.,
in the mill owned by Albert Curtis on the site of the Hale mill. His
purpose was to put to practical use a spooling machine, invented by him,
which done he removed to Spencer in 1S47 ^"d engaged in the manufacture
of cotton warp yarn. He removed his business to Warren in 1849, where
he added machinery for manufacturing woolen goods. He sold out
his interest in the woolen manufacturing business in i860, having in 1859
obtained a patent for an improved method of operating the valves of
pumping engines, and the first steam pumps made under his patent were
made for him by contract. The invention proving of great value in mining
operations as well as for general use, he began to manufacture them in
his own machine shop at Warren, in 1863, where he had the previous year
begun the manufacture of his patented safety steam boiler feed regulator,
invented in 1840. He had been led, in his business as a manufacturer, to
study the power loom, and this refulted in the Knowles loom which made
his name known throughout the textile manufacturing centres of Europe and
America. In 1862 he induced his brother, Francis B. Knowles, to join
him in the manufacture of the Knowles tape-loom. For this purpose
they set apart a room in the pump works at Warren, and their first work-
ing force was one wood worker and two machinists ; but the demand for
the new loom soon caused the increase of both working force and room,
and to obtain the latter he sold a half interest in his steam pump to the
George F. Blake Company, of Boston, and the manufactory of pumps
was transferred to that city. In 1866 the shops of the loom works were
transferred to Worcester, in rooms on Allen's Court, and, in 1879, they
were crowded for room and removed to the junction shops, and. later,
to a new building on the corner of Tainter and Grand Streets, extending
3o8 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
to the railroad tracks on Grand Street, in 1889. The business was con-
solidated with that of the Crompton Loom Works, in 1897, and incor-
porated as the Crompton & Knowles Loom Works with a capital of
$3,000,000. The Star Foundry, of Worcester, was added to the combina-
tion in 1897, and the Gilbert Loom Company in 1899. The Crompton close-
shed loom, the Knowles open- shed loom, and the Gilbert loom, for weaving
Kentucky jean^ and other coarse goods, gave employment to 1,500 skilled
machinists, and the product of the works found a market in the principal
manufacturing towns of the United States and Europe.
Mr. Knowles served the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a repre-
sentative in the General Court, in 1862 and 1863; as a state senator in 1869.
He served the city of Worcester as a member of the Common Council; was
a director of the Central National Bank; in the State Mutual Assurance
Company; president of the People's Saving Bank, and president of the
Worcester Board of Trade. He received the honorary degree of M. A.
from Williams College in 1865.
Mr. Knowles died suddenly while on a visit to Washington, D. C,
of neuralgia of the heart, Feb. 25, 1884.
FRANCIS B. KNOWLES.
Francis B. Knowles was born in Hardwick, Mass., Nov. 29, 1823.
His father, Simeon Knowles, was an industrious and well-to-do farmer,
and his sons were accustomed to work on the farm and in the workshop.
Francis was educated in the public schools and academy of his native
town, and then taught the district school at Dana, Mass., through a winter
term. His next school was at Gloversville, New York, but at the end of
his first term he determined to change his occupation and obtained a posi-
tion as travelling salesman for a glove manufacturer of Gloversville. He
was most successful in this occupation, and on April i, 1845, he began the
manufacture of buckskin gloves on his own account, meeting with con-
siderable success. He subsequently engaged in the clothing business up to
1862, when he removed from Gloversville, New York, to Warren, Mass.,
to take up the manufacture of looms in connection with his brother, Lucius
J. Knowles, four years his senior, and the inventor of a pumping engine
of special value in mining operations, of the safety steam boiler feed
regulator, and of an improved loom which came into general use in many
of the cotton manufactories of the United States and abroad. The two
brothers formed a partnership, and F. B. Knowles devoted his whole
time to the manufacture of his brother's loom, and saw the business expand
from a small room in which three men worked, to an immense factory
OF THE UNITED STATES 309
employing over 600 skilled workmen. The loom works at Warren were
removed to Allen's Court, Worcester, Mass., in 1866, and to the junction
shop, to secure needed room, in 187c). A new building was erected in 1889
on the corner of fainter and Grand Streets, extending to the railroad
tracks on Grand Street.
The Knowles Loom Works and the Crompton Loom Works were
consolidated and incorporated as the Crompton & Knowles Loom Works in
1897, with a capital of $3,000,000. The Star Foundry was added to the
concern in March, 1897, and the Gilbert Loom Company in 1899, and
the combined business, as operated by the Crompton & Knowles Loom
Works, Worcester, Mass., gave employment to about 1,500 hands in manu-
facturing the Crompton close-shed and the Knowles open-shed looms, and
the Gilbert loom to weave Kentucky jeans, cartridge belts, carpets and other
coarse fabrics. The officers of the company in 1910 were : Charles H.
Hutchins, president, and L. J. Knowles, treasurer, and the stock was held
by forty-five individual stockholders. Mr. Knowles married, Dec. 23, 1845,
Ann Eliza, daughter of David Poole. ATrs. Knowles died Feb. 24, 1865,
and he married, secondly, April 23, 1867, Hester A., daughter of John
Reynolds and Fanny Wightman Greene, of Worcester. The vigorous cli-
mate of New England affected his health as he increased in age, and he
found relief by spending his winters in Florida, where he became financially
interested in the development of the town of Winter Park and he was
one of the largest stockholders in the enterprise, which was incorporated
as the Winter Park Company.
Francis B. Knowles died in 1890.
CHARLES HENRY HUTCHINS.
Charles Henry Hutchins was born in East Douglas, Mass., Jan. 13,
1847; the son of Charles Hutchins, of Saco, Me., and Harriet N., daughter
of Oliver Hunt, of East Douglas, Mass., a pioneer axe manufacturer in this
country. Mr. Hutchins was educated in the public and high schools of
his native town, and then put in two years in his father's axe factory,
where he learned both practical mechanics and business system. The next
two years he spent as a clerk in a country store in the town, after whfch
he entered the dry goods house of Horace Sheldon & Co., of Worcester,
with which establishment he remained from 1867 to 1874.
On withdrawing from Horace Sheldon & Co., he organized the firm
of C. H. Hutchins & Co., and engaged in the manufacture of tapes and
webbings, the business soon afterwards being incorporated as the Hutchins
Narrow Fabric Company. In 1884, he became a member of the firm of
310 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
L. J. Knowles & Bro., loom manufacturers, of Worcester, after the death
of Lucius J. Knowles, the senior member of the firm. On its incorporation
as the Knowles Loom Works in 1835, he became treasurer of the cor-
poration, and in 1890, on the death of Francis B. Knowles, his father-in-law,
he succeeded him as president. In 1897, Mr. Hutchins became the first
president of the new Crompton & Knowles Loom Works, of Worcester,
the result of a consolidation of the Crompton Loom Works, of Worcester,
and the Knowles Loom Works, in which arrangement he was the prime
mover.
Mr. Hutchins was a man of large affairs in the manufacturing world,
and was associated with many other important enterprises. From 1899
he has served as president of the United States Envelope Company, the
largest concern of its kind in the world. He served also as a director in
national and savings banks and trust companies ; was one of the founders
of the Hospital Cottages for children at Baldwinsville, Mass., and was
a director of the Home for Aged Men and the Home for Aged Women in
Worcester. He was a member of the Piedmont Congregational Church and
an active supporter of church works. He married Eliza E. Knowles,
daughter of the late Francis B. Knowles, in 1873.
EDWIN TYLER MARBLE.
Edwin Tyler Marble, born in Sutton, Mass., Aug. 18, 1827. He was
the eldest son of Royal Tyler and Ann B. (Clement) Marble. The family
of Marble has long been identified with the town of Sutton. Samuel, the
immigrant ancestor, settled in Andover before 1660, coming from Wales.
He was a brick mason, making his own bricks, and was admitted a free-
man in 1678. Freegrace. his son, was born about 1690, and his marriage
to Mary Sibley was the first in Sutton. He was one of the original pro-
prietors of the town, a brick mason, and helped to build the old State
House in Boston. Malachi, son of Freegrace, and great-grandfather of
Edwin T. Marble, was born in Sutton, where he became prominent. He
enlisted April 11, 1759, in Colonel John Chandler's regiment, and during the
French War was also in Captain Samuel Clark Power's company, Brigadier-
General Ruggles' regiment. During the Revolution he was collector of
taxes for Sutton. Andrew, grandfather of Edwin Tyler, was the oldest son
of Malachi, and was born in Sutton in 1761. He was a mail-carrier between
Boston and Hartford. Royal Tyler, father of Edwin Tyler, was fourth
child of Andrew, born in Sutton in 1797. He built up a reputation
throughout the country for his ability to raise prize stock, and he was
much interested in the Worcester County Agricultural Society in its
C^2^^^^^^ X'^^^^^^^J
OF THE UNITED STATES 311
early days. He was commissioned lieutenant of the 5th regiment, Sept.
20, 1826, and was captain of the Sutton rifles in 1830 and 1831. fle
married Ann Bailey Clement, of Worcester, Sept. 27, 1825, she being a
daughter of Moses and Sarah (Bailey) Clement, a descendant of old
Essex County families.
The subject of this sketch was educated in the public schools of his
native town, and also at the Worcester County Manual Training School,
that being the old name of the Worcester Academy, having removed to
Worcester with his parents in 1841. At the age of eighteen he entered
the machine- shop of Albert Curtis, where he served an apprenticeship of
three years. He then worked in various machine shops in the city of
Worcester as a journeyman, foreman and superintendent ; for some time
he was in the employ of A. & S. Thayer, and afterwards was foreman for
Thayer, Houghton & Co., manufacturers of machinists' tools. Later he was
superintendeint for E. C. Cleveland & Co., manufacturers of woolen
machinery. In 1850 he worked for a time in Shelburne Falls, but retained
his residence in Worcester. In 1863 he entered into partnership with Mr.
Albert Curtis, who had established the business in 1831, with John
Simmons and Abel Kimball as his partners in the manufacture of ma-
chinery for the finishing of woolen cloth, including shearing machines,
brushing machines, gigs, nappers, etc., Mr. Curtis having continued the
business with other partners or in his own name up to that time. The
new firm, under the style of Curtis & Marble, began business in the same
small shop on Webster Street where the junior partner had learned his
trade ; Mr. Marble assuming tlie management of the machine shop and Mr.
Curtis devoted his time to his woolen mills. The business grew steadily
from that time on, the working force being largely increased and the
partnership continued until April, 1895, when Mr. Marble bought the
interests of Mr. Curtis and became sole proprietor. The Curtis & Marble
Machine Co. was incorporated December 31, 1895, with a capital of $75,000,
Mr. Marble being president and treasurer, and retaining these positions
until his death. The other officers were his four sons : Edwin H. Marble,
vice-president ; William C. Marble, secretary ; Charles F. Marble, cashier ;
Albert C. Marble, superintendent. In 1897 an entire new plant was built
at 72 Cambridge Street, and the business moved into a modern brick
factory, the main building beirig three hundred feet long by sixty-four feet
wide, where the company made a most extensive line of finishing machinery
for all textile fabrics, and also wool burring, picking and mixing machinery.
A republican from the organization of the party, Mr. Marble always
took a prominent and active part in public affairs. In 1870 he was elected
representative to the General Court, but declined a second term, and he
served in the State Senate in 1887 and 1888. He was a member of the
school board in i860, and again from 1872 to 1880; was elected to the
common council in 1866 to 1868, and was a member of the Board of Alder-
312 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
men from 1869 to 1872. He was six years a director of the Free Public
Library, being president of the board the last year. He was an active and
influential member of the Worcester County Mechanics' Association, which
he joined in 1846, and was trustee during the intervening time (twelve
years), and president in 1878 and 1879. His other interests were many
and varied. He was a director of the Worcester Safe Deposit & Trust
Co., which has grown into the Worcester Trust Co., of which he was a
director until his death. He was trustee and vice-president of the Peoples'
Savings Bank, and was for many years a member of the committee on
investments. He was a member of the executive committee and vice-
president of the Home for Aged Men from its organization in 1891, and
president during 1909-10. He was a member of the Board of Trade and
a director for many years; a member of Worcester County Agricultural
Society; also a member of the National Association of Cotton Manufac-
turers. He was affiliated with the Piedmont Congregational Church from
1875 and served in many offices, being deacon for nearly thirty-five years.
Mr. Marble married, in Shelburne Falls, Mass., October 23, 1850,
Harriet Hamilton, daughter of Henry Prentice and Achsah H. (Clement)
Chase. Her father was a descendant of Aquila Chase, immigrant and
pioneer. She was a schoolteacher while in ^^'orcester and taught in the
public schools. Mrs. Marble died in April, 1892. Their children were
Edwin H., Harriet A., William C, Charles F. and Albert C. The four sons
were associated with their father in business; the daughter, Harriet A.,
lived with her father, and died in 1906. Mr. Marble died July 3, 1910, after
a brief illness, in his eighty-third year.
ALBERT CURTLS.
Albert Curtis was born in Worcester, Mass., July 13, 1807. He was
a son of Samuel and Eunice (Taft) Curtis, and descended through Samuel
and Mary (Stone-Coggin) Ward Curtis. Ephraim and Mary, daughter of
Isaac and Sibyl (C'ollins) Rice Curtis; Ephraim and Alary (daughter of
David and Susanna Stone) Curtis; Joseph and Abigail (daughter of Cap-
tain John and Sarah (Busby-Cakebread) Grout Curtis; from Henry Curtis,
who came to New England in 1635 in the "Elizabeth and Anne," and
settled at Watertown, Mass. He was then twenty-seven years old, and he
married Mary, daughter of Nicholas Guy, of Upton Gray, Southampton,
England, who came to New England in 1838 in the ship "Confidence"
and settled at Watertown, Mass. Henry Curtis was a wheelwright by trade.
Albert Curtis was the sixth son of his father, who died in 181 1 when
the boy was very young. Albert, from the age of nine to thirteen, lived
OF THE UNITED STATES 313
with an uncle in Auburn, where he attended district school in winter and
assisted about the farm in summer ; he then went to reside with a relative
in Tioga County, New York, where he followed the same routine of life.
When seventeen years of age, he returned to Worcester, where he served an
apprenticeship of three years in the shops of White & Boyden, manufac-
turers of woolen machinery at South Worcester. At the close of his ap-
prenticeship he was employed by the firm as a journeyman. In 1829 he
went to Pittsburg, Pa., and returning to Worcester in 1831, entered into
partnership with John Simmons and Abel Kimball, under the firm name
of J. Simmons & Co., and engaged in the manufacturing of brushing,
shearing and napping machines for finishing woolens. This partnership
was dissolved in 1832, and thereafter the firm was known as Simmons &
Curtis. In 1833 Mr. Curtis purchased Mr. Simmons' interest and carried
on business alone until 1834, when he associated himself with Mr. William
Henshaw. The firm was now known as Curtis & Henshaw and so con-
tinued for four years.
In 1840 Mr. Curtis purchased of Mr. Wheelock the water privilege
and mill building and two full sets of satinet machinery. In 1842 this fac-
tory, as well as his machine shop, was destroyed by fire, and he promptly
rebuilt them, and in the same year built a factory, part of which he leased
to Sumner Pratt for the manufacture of sewing thread. He acquired an
equal interest in this business, and, in 1844, he bought out Mr. Pratt and
put in looms for making cotton sheetings, and the following year built
a large factory just south of this mill. In 1852 he bought the Trowhridge
village and mill property with the large farm attached, these being situated
about three-quarters of a mile from his other factories. Here, after
making extensive improvements, he also began to manufacture sheetings.
In 1857 he began the manufacture of satinets, and, in 1863, he took
Edwin T. Marble into partnership in the manufacture of woolen ma-
chinery, and this portion of his business was thereafter conducted under
the firm name of Curtis & Marble, the junior partner assuming the active
management of the machinery business, while Mr. Curtis continued with
his mills. In 1895 Mr. Curtis sold his entire interest in the firm of
Curtis & Marble to Mr. E. T. Marble, who then formed the corporation
of Curtis & Marble Machine Company.
He continued the manufacture of cotton sheetings at the Trowbridge
Mill until 1870, when most of it was destroyed by fire, and it was re-
constructed as a woolen mil). In 1871 Mr. Curtis fitted his other factory,
built in 1845 ^"^ known as the South Mill, for the production of woolen
goods, and, in 1871 put in looms for the weaving of horse blankets.
In 1880 Mr. Curtis incorporated the mill property and water rights
at New Worcester as the Curtis Manufacturing Company.
Shortly after his death, in 1898, the controlling interest was bought
by Charles G. Stratton, who, in 1009, sold the real estate and water rights
314 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
to the Worcester Electric Light Company, who have razed the old build-
ings and erected a modern electric power plant on the site
Mr. Curtis built the first machine made in this country for shearing
or trimming cotton goods. These machines were used to remove fuzz from
cotton cloth, which in former times had been accomplished by singeing
or burning. A shearing machine made in France was sent from Paw-
tucket to be repaired ; this had one set of shears. Mr. Curtis made
improvements and built machines superior for the purpose. The Curtis
& Alarble machine has two to six sets of shears, and one machine cau do
as much as twelve of the old type did in 1830.
He was a member of the government of the old town of Worcester
as selectman, 1840-41 : he was also a member of the first Common Council
of the city in 1848, and an alderman in 1857, and was trustee of the
City Hospital. He was for some time vice-president of the Worcester
Society of Antiquity, and a member of kindred organizations.
Mr. Curtis built the Curtis Chapel at Hope Cemetery, and presented
it to the city. He was also liberal in his benefactions to the Old Men's
Home, the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Chris-
tian Association and to the Union Church. His gifts in other directions
were liberal and numerous.
Mr. Curtis married, 1832, Mrs. Sally K. Griffin, who died, leaving
no children by this marriage. He married, in 1880, Mrs. Bancroft, widow
of Rev. David Bancroft. Mr. Curtis died suddenly in Worcester, July
27, 1898.
ABRAHAM MARLAND.
Abraham Marland was born in Ashton Parish, Lancashire, England,
Feb. 22, 1772, son of Jonathan and Martha (Lawton) Marland. His
mother died in 1776, and her brother, John Lawton, a woolen manufacturer
of Ashton, took charge of the boy and sent him to school until he was
eight years of age, when he began his apprenticeship in the woolen mill.
He was but fifteen years old when his uncle died, leaving him possessed
of an excellent knowledge of the business, but entirely dependent upon
himself for a livelihood. He readily obtained employment in another factory
in the neighborhood, but shortly after went to Leeds, and in that place
and at Holbeck, on the opposite side of the river, he was employed in
woolen mills for four years. At the opening of the nineteenth century
he embarked for America with his wife and infant child, arriving in
Boston, Mass., September 17, 1801. He went directly to Pawtucket,
R. L, where Samuel Slater was operating a mill for spinning cotton yarns,
for the purpose of obtaining work or advice in regard to finding employ-
OF THE UNITED STATES 315
ment for his skill and his savings. Slater advised him to invest his money
in land and its cultivation, and not to risk it in the precarious business of
a manufacturer. This was contrary to Marland's plans, and he determined
to pursue the vocation of which he felt himself a master. The manufac-
ture of wool was at a low ebb in America, and the attention of manu-
facturers was directed to cotton, which was then much in demand as warp
to be used with flax and wool, and for calico as a popular dress goods.
His skill in spinning wool yarn served him in operating the spinning
jennies for cotton yarn, and the next two years were spent in the Beverly
Cotton Manufactory. In August, 1803, he removed to Lynnfield, where
he engaged in manufacturing cotton yarns for knitting and weaving. This
business he continued up to May, 1807, when he transferred his machinery
to Abbot Village, Andover, Mass. He built a small mill fifteen by forty
feet, two stories high, and in this conducted the business of the Abraham
Marland Cotton Factory up to 181 1. Thomas R. Appleton was the selling
agent for the cotton warp, filling and knitting yarns produced by the
mill. In 181 1 Mr. Marland gave up the business of working in cotton and
changed his carding and spinning machinery to that for working wool ; he
also added looms adapted to weaving satinets and found profit in their
manufacture up to the outbreak of the War of 181 2, when he adapted his
mill to weaving army blankets. From 1813 to 1819 he was interested in a
mill established by James Schofield at the mouth of the Cochicawick River,
in North Andover. Later the depreciation in government bonds received in
payment for blankets so decreased his profits that he changed the product
of his mills to making flannels, which was his chief output thereafter. In
1821 he secured from Peter C. Brooks a lease of the old powder mill
erected in 1775-76 at Andover by Samuel Phillips, Jr., and transformed to
a paper mill in 1789. The lease was to run for twenty years, and Marland
erected on the site the first brick mill, the oldest of the present Marland
Mills, and also a block of brick tenements for the operators. The machinery
transferred from the old mill was supplemented by new machinery, and the
mill was in full operation in the fall of 1822. The venture was profitable,
and on September i, 1828, Mr. Marland purchased the pro])erty, including
the mill privilege on both sides of the river, with the woolen -mill of 1822,
the old paper mill, a grist mill and thirty acres of land. He erected a new
mill in 1832, and in 1834 incorporated the business as the Marland Manu-
facturing Company, with a capital stock of $60,000, the stockholders
being Abraham Marland, his sons, John and William S. Marland, and his
son-in-law, Benjamin H. Punchard. Abraham Marland was president of
the corporation up to the time of his death, and Benjamin H. Punchard
was the first treasurer of the company. Mr. Marland was a member of the
Episcopal Church, and, there being no church in Andover, he carried out
a long-cherished desire in 1835, when, with his sons and son-in-law, he
secured the establishment of Christ Church and liberally supported it dur-
3i6 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
ing its early days. He gave the lot adjoining the church for the site of a
rectory and erected on it a commodious dwelling for the rector. With
his son, John, he also gave the ground for a cemetery. Mr. Marland mar-
ried, Feb. 3, 1800, Mary Sykes, of Holbeck, England. He died at Andover,
Mass., Feb. 20, 1849.
ROBERT ROGERSON.
Robert Rogerson was born in Boston, Mass., Jan. 30, 1786; son of Dr.
Robert Rogerson and grandson of the Rev. Robert Rogerson, who was born
in Portsmouth, England, and about 1740 was sent as assistant collector of
revenue by the home government to the American colony of Virginia. Rob-
ert Rogerson was brought up in Boston, where he was educated in public
and private schools. He was engaged in business on his own account as a
wholesale merchant in American goods when he was twenty-seven years
of age. His store in 18x3 was located at No. 21 Dock Square, Boston,
and there, previous to that date, he had established in his store building
machinery by which he manufactured cotton yarns. The power that moved
his spinning frames was furnished by a horse kept quietly at work in the
cellar of the building The business conducted in such limited quarters
was successful as well as remunerative, and in 1813 he invested capital in
the business of manufacturing cotton yarns by water-power by purchasing
the Clapp Mill at North Uxbridge, Mass., removing his entire Boston
spinning plant to that mill in 181 3. He operated the mill with few addi-
tions in machinery or accommodations up to 1823. In 1820 he received
into partnership Oliver Eldridge, who was interested in the investment of
capital in various manufactories in Worcester county and elsewhere, and
the firm of R. Rogerson & Company became the proprietors of the busi-
ness of Robert Rogerson, of Boston, wholesale dealer in domestic and
foreign dry goods, the business having in the mean time been transferred
from Dock Square to 68V' State Street, and in 1823 R. Rogerson & Co.
removed to 26 Merchants' Row, and in 1826 to 38 South Market Street.
The Clapp Mill was removed in 1823 to the opposite side of the public
highway to make room for a new stone mill, the building being 100 feet
long, 40 feet wide and three stories high, with both basement and attic.
The machinery was built on the premises in the best manner then known
to manufacturers and regardless of cost, so as to insure as fine and per-
fect goods as could be produced in the United States. In 1827 a second
mill was erected, con.structed of like material and of the same dimensions
and general appearance, on the opposite or eastern side of the Mumford
River. To the mill erected in 1823 he gave the name "Crown Mill," and
OF THE UNITED STATES 317
to that erected in 1827, "Eagle .Mill," the names having apparently been
selected by the owner in compliment to both the country of his ancestors
and his own native land The expense of building these two mills and
laying out, building up and beautifying the village, created by the presence
of two such flourishing mills, approximated $200,000. A contemporary
writer describes these improvements in the following words : "The village
has more the quality of perfection than almost any other manufacturing
village in Massachusetts." Another says : "The whole village is laid out
with so much taste that it attracts the notice of any stranger who may
pass through it." Mr. Oliver Eldridge retired from the firm of R. Roger-
son & Co. in 1827, and Handel Rogerson, a younger brother of the senior
partner, took his place. On March 12, 1830, the business of Robert Roger-
son, sole owner of the Crown and Eagle Mills, was incorporated under
a special act of the legislature of Massachusetts as : "The Proprietors of
the Crown and Eagle Mills," the incorporators being Robert Rogerson and
Handel Rogerson, Robert Rogerson conveying the property to the corpora-
tion for $225,000 and Handel Rogerson assuming the general management
of the mill as resident agent. The financial crisis of 1837 put a stop to
the continuous and accelerating prosperity of the mills. A writer mention-
ing its effect on Mr. Rogerson's enterprise says: "The magnificent prop-
erty that had been erected by his genius and enterprise, and through which
he furnished the means of industry and emolument to many, passed into
the hands of strangers." The creditors of Mr. Rogerson organized a new
corporation, December 16, 1840, under the name of the Uxbridge Cotton
Mills, the charter by the state of Massachusetts bearing date !March 20,
1840, authorizing the sale of stock to the full sum of $100,000; Charles
W. Cartwright, Henry Hall, James Read, George Morey, Daniel Denny,
Benjamin Humphrey and Benjamin E. White, all prominent merchants
and capitalists of Boston, owning the entire stock. The business of the
Uxbridge Cotton Mills was conducted by the agents of these proprietors up
to April I, 1849, when the mills were stopped. On May 8, 1840, the prop-
erty was sold to Paul Whitin & Sons, of Whitinsville, who added the fine
plant of the old Eagle and Crown Mills to their other successful cotton
mills and cotton macliinery enterprises, using the charter and name of the
Uxbridge Cotton T^lills corporation. In 185 1 the Whitins increased the
capacity of the mills nearly one-half by the erection of a brick building
120 feet long and of uniform width and height, with the two granite mills
tmiting them by spanning the river with an arch, making the mills with
the intervening structure 320 feet long. In -the settlement he made with
his creditors, Robert Rogerson gave a preference to the employees and
small creditors, mostly business men of ITxbridge of comparatively small
resources ; his debts to such he paid in full, while between the capitalists
of Boston and New York, who had enjoyed a profitable business connec-
tion with him for many years, the loss was equitably shared. He removed
3i8 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
his family from Boston to his farm at Uxbridge, near his mill, where he
devoted liimself to the cultivation of the soil up to 1847, when he returned
to Boston. In his home and social life he was known as a man of ex-
tensive reading, of much thought, of public spirit, of deep interest in the
welfare of the community and of his employees and dependents. In busi-
ness he was stern, grave, reticent and far too independent. He was pos-
sessed of rare musical talent, and his skill as an organist was displayed
upon the fine organ given by him to the Unitarian Society of Uxbridge.
He was president of the Handel & Haydn Society of Boston, the oldest
and, during its existence, the foremost musical musical organization of the
United States. Mr. Rogerson died in Boston, Mass., August 11, 1862, in
the seventy-seventh year of his age.
ARTHUR T. LYMAN.
Arthur Theodore Lyman was born in Boston, Mass., Dec. 8,
1832; son of George Williams and Anne (Pratt) Lyman; grandson of
Theodore and Lydia (Williams) Lyman and of William and Mary (Wil-
liams) Pratt, and a. descendant of Richard and Sarah (Osborne) Lyman
through Captain Moses and Mindwell (Slieldon) Lyman, Rev. Isaac and
Sarah Plummer Lyman and' Theodore and Lydia Williams Lyman, his
paternal grandparents. Richard Lyman, the immigrant, came from High
Ongar, Essex, England, to Charlestown, Massachusetts Bay, in the ship
"Lion" in 1631, and in 1635 removed to Hartford Colony on the Connec-
ticut River and thence to Northampton, Mass. The Lymans became promi-
nent in the development of industrial and educational interests in New
England and in public affairs of the commonwealth of Massachusetts.
George Williams Lyman, who, with his father, had been engaged in trade
with India, China, Europe and the northwest coast of America, became
later largely intere.sted in manufacturing companies in Lowell, Lawrence
and Holyoke. He was treasurer of the Lowell Manufacturing Company,
1831-41 ; of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, 1833-39; of the Apple-
ton Company, and of the Lyman Mills, Holyoke, Mass.
Arthur Theodore Lyman was prejjared for college in Boston and Wal-
tham under private tutors, and was graduated from Harvard College with
the class of 1853, receiving his master's degree in 1857. He entered trade
as a clerk in the counting room of Samuel and Edward Austin, India
Wharf, Boston, the firm being engaged in the East India trade, and after
eighteen months' service he travelled in the various European countries for
study and observation, 1855-56. On his return to Boston in 1856 he was
engaged in the East India trade on his own account. In i860 he was made
j:a^^£:s j^. z~-iMB en.
OF THE UNITED STATES 319
treasurer of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, chartered in 1825,
which corporation his father had served in the same office, 1833-39. He
was made treasurer of the Appleton Company, organized in 1828, of which
company, also, his father had been treasurer. Arthtir T. Lyman served
both of these corporations as treasurer up to the close of 1863. He then
became selling agent for various cotton mills as a member of the firm
of J. W. Paige & Co., Boston, and in 1866 accepted the treasurership of
the Hadley Company, of Holyoke, Mass., serving until 1889. In 1881 he
was chosen treasurer of the Lowell Manufacturing Company, holding the
office until the union of the Lowell Manufacturing Company with the
Bigelow Carpet Company in 1900. In 18S6 he served temporarily as treas-
urer of the Tremont & Suffolk Mills, and likewise served temporarily the
Merrimack Manufacturing Company.
Mr. Lyman was a director of the Pacific Mills, Merrimack Mfg. Co.,
Lawrence Mfg. Co., Tremont & Suffolk Mills, Lowell Machine Shop, Boott
Cotton Mills, Middlesex Company, Massachusetts Cotton Mills, Massa-
chusetts Mills in Georgia, Dwight Mfg. Co., Bigelow Carpet Co., Boston
Mfg. Co., Waltliam Bleachery /k Dye Works, being also president of many
of those corporations.
In addition to these various interests, he was director of the Massa-
chusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company and of the Massachusetts
National Bank, 1862-98. He also served as a trustee of the Provident In-
stitution for Savings in Boston. He was elected President of the Boston
Athenasum in 1899, having previously been secretary, treasurer and trus-
tee. He was a member of the corporation of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and was an overseer of Tlarvard College, 1892-99. He was
aide-de-camp, with the rank of colonel, on the staiif of Governor Alexander
H. Rice, 1876-79.
Mr. Lyman married, on April 8, 1858, Ella, daughter of John Amory
and Elizabeth E. (Putnam) Lowell, of Tioston, and their children in the
order of their birth were: Julia, Arthur (Harvard, 1883), who became a
lawyer and manager of real estate and other trusts; Herbert (Harvard,
1886), who became the treasurer of the Hadley Company, Holyoke, Mass.,
was for a time manager of the New England office of the American Thread
Company and was made treasurer of the Merrimac Manufacturing Com-
pany in 1908; Ella (Mrs. Richard C. Cabot), member of the Massachusetts
State Board of Education and of the Council of RadclifTe College ; Susan
Lowell (died 1878) ; Mabel, and Ronald Theodore, who became treasurer
of the Boston Manufacturing Company, Waltham. Mass., and of the Wal-
tham Bleacherv & Dye Works.
320 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
ERASTUS BRIGHAM BIGELOW.
Erastus Brigham Bigelow was born at West Boylston, Mass., April 2,
1814; son of Ephraim and Polly (Brigham) Bigelow. His father was
a man of small means, and the boy, at the age of ten, found a place on
a farm, where he worked hard for three years. In the winter he attended
the district school, and what he there learned kindled on a naturally bright
mind a desire for a liberal education, which could be obtained only through
his own efforts, and for several years this was his sole aim and object.
In 1827 his father established a mill for the manufacture of cotton
yarns and put Erastus to work in the mill, where, at the age of fourteen,
he invented a hand loom for weaving cotton webbing for suspenders.
The demand for the webbing did not justify the employment of an oper-
ator to work the machine, and he abandoned it. His next venture was
the perfecting of a machine for making cotton cord, which earned the
youthful inventor the sum of one hundred dollars the first year, but a de-
cline in the demand for the article caused the abandonment of this machine
also. Having bv these means acquired a small capital with which he paid
for his tuition at the Leicester Academy, his progress was such that his
teacher recommended a collegiate coin-se for the lad, but his father con-
sidered a trade a surer and safer means of earning a livelihood.
Averse to the occupation of spinning, Erastus went to Boston, where
he obtained employment in the wholesale and retail establishment of S. F.
Morse & Co. While there, he taught himself the art of stenography and
compiled and published a book entitled "The Self-Taught Stenographer."
He sold it readily in Boston, then took a partner and had a larger edition
printed, but he failed to place this in the hands of the public and found
himself heavily in debt. He was now eighteen years old. His father mean-
while had formed a partnership with the celebrated John Smith, and a
new mill had been built for their operations. This left the old mill idle,
and Erastus entered into partnership with John Munroe and there estab-
lished a twine manufactory. Bigelow & Munroe next ran a cotton factory
at Wareham, Mass. : the venture ended disastrously at the end of nine
months, and young Bigelow went to New York, where he studied the art
of penmanship, and for some time earned a living by teaching it. This
desultory sort of existence did not satisfy him, and he resolved to be-
come a physician ; passed another winter in classical studies at Leicester
and entered upon the study of medicine, in which he encountered many
difficulties, owing to the lack of early [jreparation.
His attention was now drawn to the possibility of perfecting a loom
for the weaving of Marseilles or knotted quilts, having years before seen
similar productions woven by the slow and necessarily costly process of
the hand loom. He suspended his medical studies to solve this problem,
and having constructed a satisfactory working model, proceeded to Boston
OF THE UNITED STATES 321
in search of capital, interested Freeman, Cobb & Co., who were large im-
porters of the article, and who agreed to pay for the English and Amer-
ican patents and erect a mill for the manufacture of the fabric. Feeling
assured that he would now be able to take a college course, he resumed his
studies under a tutor; but Messrs. Freeman, Cobb & Co. failed in business,
during a period of business depression, and it was difficult to raise money for
new ventures. ]\Ioreover, his father had been unsuccessful in business and
was now in declining health, and it was necessary that he should abandon
all thought of college.
Having accidentally seen the process of weaving coach lace by hand
loom, the idea of a power loom occurred to him. First ascertaining the
demand for the article in question, he set himself to the production of a
machine which had up to that time been deemed impracticable, and within
six weeks of the time of its conception he had the loom in successful oper-
ation. This beautiful and complicated piece of mechanism involved all the
essential principles of a more important one — the Brussels carpet loom — and
its complete success brought the inventor at once into notice. Fairbanks,
Loring & Co., of Boston; John Wright, of Worcester; Israel Langley, of
Shirley, with Era.stus B. Bigelow and Horatio Bigelow, formed a com-
pany for the purpose of building and running the looms, and were later
incorporated as the Clinton Company. The Freeman, Cobb Co., having
recovered from their financial embarrassments, were now desirous of con-
tracting with Mr. Bigelow for a number of looms for the weaving of coun-
terpanes ; but a new fabric having entered the market from England, Mr.
Bigelow set about the invention of a power loom for the invention of this
new^ kind of counterpane. Within six months it was in successful oper-
ation, and a. small mill in Lancaster was filled with the machinery. This
business of weaving spreads ha? been steadily prosperous and has grown
to large proportions.
Mr. Bigelow now took up the difi^icult problem of weaving ingrain or
Kidderminster carpet by power looms, and he mastered this problem as he
had mastered others. His first loom for two-ply ingrain carpets was set
up within the year, and in matching .of figures and evenness of surface sur-
passed the hand loom. Its average production was twelve yards per diem.
A second loom produced eighteen yards. Still unsatisfied, he produced a
third machine with essential variations which produced from twenty-five
to twenty-seven yards a day. This loom was set to work in 1841. In the
autumn of that year, he visited England and brought back many sugges-
tions of practical value, so that the several manufacturing corporations of
Lowell, in 1842, created a new office with a liberal salary and appointed
him to fill it, his duties being to advise and suggest improvements in con-
sultation with the agents of the respective companies. This brought forth
some important changes, which were adopted by all the cotton companies
of Lowell. Other interests absorbed his time so fully that he resigned this
322 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
charge at the end of a year and a half and the office dropped out of
existence.
During that period he bad built a mill for the Lowell Company to
operate his power loom; and thus started the first successful power loom
carpet factory noted in the annals of manufacture.
In 1842-3 Mr. Bigelow projected a new mill at Lancaster for the
weaving of ginghams. Its buildings covered four acres of ground and
were filled with machinery of the most perfect character, much of which
was invented, and all of which was adjusted by ]\Ir. Bigelow. The Mer-
chants' Magazine of that period thus wrote of the establishment : "It is de-
servedly rated as the most perfect establishment in the LInited States."
During the three years he was thus occupied, he made nine distinct im-
portant inventions, all of which were patented and put in operation. He
now paid another visit to Europe, and on his return in 1848 proceeded to
develop and perfect the Brussels carpet power loom, which he varied so
as to produce also Wilton tapestry and velvet tapestry carpets. Specimens
of his carpet were shown at the Exhibition in London, England, in 1851,
but were put in too late to receive a prize, though full justice was done
to Mr. Bigelow as the prior inventor of a successful power loom for the
weaving of carpets, and his productions were pronounced more perfect than
that of any hand loom. Alessrs. Crossley & Sons immediately made an
arrangement for placing the looms in their immense manufactory at Hali-
fax, England, and they ultimately bought the patent rigjits for the LTnited
Kingdom. Over fifty patents were taken out by Mr. Bigelow for his
various inventions.
Mr. Bigelow was elected a member of the Boston Historical Society
in 1864, and in 1869 he made a presentation to that society of six volumes,
entitled "Inventions of Erastus Brigham Bigelow, patented in England
from 1837 to 1 868,'' in which were collected the printed specifications of
eighteen patents granted to him in England. Later in life, he made a study
of the tariff and of taxation in general, and published various articles bear-
ing on those questions. In 1862 he prepared a scheme of universal tax-
ation throughout the Laiited States by means of stamps ; and in 1863 pub-
lished a brochure entitled "The Tarifif Question, Considered in Regard to
England and the other Interests of the United States."
Mr. Bigelow's published writings mostly treat of political economy, in
a manner very characteristic of his analytical skill, being precise in state-
ment and clear in style. He contributed to the press in 1852, "Remarks
on the Depressed Condition of Manufactures in Massachusetts, with Sug-
gestions as to its Cause and Remedy;" in 1862 a large quarto entitled, "The
Tariff Question Considered in Regard to the Policy of England and the
Interest of the United States;" in 1869 an address, "The Wool Industry
of the LTnited States;" in 1877, "The Tariff Policy of England and the
OF THE UNITED STATES 323
United States Contrasted;" in 1878, "The Relations of Labor and Capital,"
an article in the Atlantic Monthly.
In politics he was generally conservative, never an active partisan,
and in later life he proclaimed his independence of party. He was in i860
nominated by the Democrats of the Fourth District as their candidate for
Representative to Congress, but his opponent, Alexander H. Rice, secured
the election by a small plurality.
He was one of the founders of the National Association of Wool
Manufacturers and its first president, a member of the American Academy
of Sciences, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the London Society
for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. He
was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
About ten years before his death he bought an estate at North Con-
way, N. H., to which he gave the name of Stonehurst. He married, first,
Susan W. King, who died in 1841, leaving an infant son who survived her
for six years; second, Eliza Frances, a daughter of Colonel David Means,
of Amherst, N. H., by whom he had one daughter, Helen, who was mar-
ried to Rev. Dr. Daniel Merrinian, pastor of the Central Congregational
Church, Worcester, Mass.
Mr. Bigelow died in Boston, Mass., December 6, 1899.
HORATIO NFXSON BIGELOW.
Horatio Nelson Bigelow was born at West Boylston, Mass., Sep-
tember 13, 1812. He was the son of Ephraim and Mary (Brigham) Bige-
low, and grandson of Abel Brigham. His father, a farmer and wheel-
wright, was in very moderate circumstances, but his mother, "Polly" Brig-
ham, was a woman of marked character and native dignity. The boyhood
of Horatio Bigelow, as of his more widely celebrated brother, Erastus, was
one of toil, and his educational opportunities were f ew ; two years at the
Bradford Academy completing them. He worked upon the farm and in
the neighboring mills, and at the age of twenty had so far mastered the
technical details of cotton manufacture that in 1832, when his father started
a small factory on the Nashua, he became its overseer. In 1834 he was
made overseer of the Beaman Mill, and in 1836 he was called to Shirley
as general superintendent of a cotton factory there.
About 1837 he removed to Clintonville. Having a small capital, in
company with his brother Erastus, he leased the vacant buildings and
water power of the defunct Lancaster Cotton Company, and in March.
1838, the Clinton Company was incorporated by John Wright. H. N. Bige-
low and Israel Longley. Floratio Bigelow was the general manager from
324 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
the inception of the business, being relieved during the years 1849-50-51
by C. W. Blanchard.
From the time of his settling at Clinton, H. N. Bigelow occupied a
house known as the Plant Mansion, and he was the master-spirit in the
enterprise of building up the new town socially as well as industrially.
Though his load of responsibility was exceptionally heavy in the estab-
lishing of various new and untried manufactures, he found time to prove
his solicitude for the future comeliness and prosperity of the busy town,
which owes a large debt of gratitude to his fostering care.
His energy ha'itened the forming of the first church society and the
building of a little chapel for its use in the grove adjacent to his residence.
He was hitnself an Orthodox Congregationalist, but he gave generously both
support and money to other denominations. He urged the building of
commodious schoolhouses and a radical improvement in the local school
system.
H. N. Bigelow, in addition to filling the office of general manager of
the various enterprises xmdertaken by his brother and himself, accepted
various public trusts, which he performed with unswerving integrity and
diligence. He was the first postmaster of the village and represented the
town at the general court during the first two years of its corporate exist-
ence. He was the first president of the Savings Bank, vice-president of
the First National Bank, a director of the Worcester and Nashua Rail-
road Company, the City Bank, and the ^Mechanics' Mutual Insurance Com-
pany of Worcester.
Mr. Bigelow married, September 4, 1834, Miss Emily Worcester, and
had four children, two of whom died young. His widow survived him
for many years, and his two sons, Henry H. and Charles B. Bigelow, in-
herited their father's administrative capacity and succeeded him as manag-
ing agents of the Bigelow Carpet Co. After three years of invalidism, Mr.
Bigelow died at his home in Worcester, January 2, 1868.
HENRY PARKER FAIRBANKS.
Henry Parker Fairbanks was born in Boston, Mass., Sept. 7,
1808. He was a son of Stephen and Abby (Parker) Fairbanks, a grand-
son of Israel and Anna (Buckman) Fairbanks, great-grandson of Israel
and Elizabeth (Whiting) Fairbanks, and descended through Joseph and
Abigail (Deane) Fairbanks, Joseph and Dorcas Fairbanks. John and Sarah
(Fiske) Fairbanks, from Jonathan and Grace (Lee) Fairbanks, of Med-
ford, Mass. This Jonathan came to Boston from England in 1633, and
OF THE UNITED STATES 325
later settled in Dedham, being one of the earliest pioneers, and was one
of the signers of the covenant when the town was established and named.
Henry P. Fairbanks attended the Boston schools, where he acquired
the distinction of being a Franklin Medal scholar. Mr. Fairbanks was a
hardware saddlery merchant in Boston, but resided in Charlestown. In
1849 he became associated with Erastus B. and Horatio N. Bigelow as a
partner in the firm of H. N. & E. B. Bigelow, who began the manufacture
of carpets in Clinton, Mass., and was selling agent of that company up to
the time of his death in 1854.
A Whig in politics, Mr. Fairbanks was an earnest, active worker for
his party, and was a member of the State Legislature in 1847 3^s a repre-
sentative from Charlestown ; he was a member of Governor Clifford's
Council in 1853. ^^^ ^"^'"^^ '^^^'^ ^ member of the city government of Charles-
town from its organization in 1847, ^"d for five years previous to his death
was president of the Common Council. Pie was a member of the Massa-
chusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association, a member of the Harvard
Church, member of the Standing Committee from 1841 till his death, at
which time he was also president of the Charlestown Lyceum, an institu-
tion in which he took a deep interest.
He married Mary Hurd Skinner, August 7, 1832, and had nine chil-
dren, five of whom survived him. His son, Charles Francis Fairbanks, be-
came treasurer of the Bigelow Carpet Company.
Mr. Fairbanks died of scarlet fever, February 14, 1854, at the early
age of fortv-five.
FREDERICK AYER.
Frederick Ayer was born in Ledyard, Connecticut, Dec. 8, 1822;
son of Frederick and Persis (Cook) Ayer. (See sketch of James Cook Ayer.
Ibid.) He was brought up in Ledyard, Conn., where he attended school
and also a private academy in Baldwinsville, New York, and in 1839 '^S"
came a clerk in the store of John T. Tomlinson & Co., Baldwinsville, N. Y.,
and in 1842 was admitted to partnership in another store of John T. Tom-
linson & Co., in Syracuse. In 1845 he formed a partnership with the Hon.
Dennis McCarthy, of Syracuse, N. Y., as McCarthy & Ayer, and remained in
business in Syracuse, N. Y., up to 1855, when he removed to Lowell, Mass.,
to become a partner in the drug and proprietary medicine business of J. C.
Ayer, the firm becoming J. C. Ayer & Co., of which his brother. Dr. James
Cook Ayer, was the head. In 1877 the business was incorporated as the
J. C. Ayer Company, and he was made treasurer of the corporation, hold-
ing that office up to 1893, when he resigned to give his entire time to his
growing financial interests, including the cotton manufacturing business at
Lowell and Lawrence.
326 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
He had, in conjunction with his brother, Dr. James C. Ayer, purchased
the controlHng interests in the Tremont Mills and Suffolk Manufacturing
Conipaaiy, of Lowell, Mass., in 1871, and consolidated the two companies
as the Tremont & Suffolk Mills, and in June, 1885, he purchased at auction
the Washington Mills at Lawrence, RTass. These mills had been known as
the Bay State Mills up to the panic of 1857, and were celebrated for their
product of "Bay State" shawls. Under Frederick Ayer's management, as
president, one year, and as treasurer the mills were pronounced "the most
perfect wool factory in the world," and were already known as the first
to embark in the manufacture of all-wool fabrics, known as cashmeres, in
America, in the manufacture of which the French had achieved such mar-
vellous results. He was at one time president of the Portage Lake Canal,
and for many years its treasurer, and he was also connected with the
Lake Superior Ship Railway & Iron Company as a director, and for sev-
eral years as both treasurer and secretary. In his home city, Lowell, he
served as a director of the Old Lowell National Bank, Merchants' National
Bank, as vice-president of the Central Savings Bank and as a director of the
New England Telephone Company from its organization. He was one
of the organizers, and for several years the treasurer of the Lake Superior
Ship Canal Railway & Iron Company, and was one of its directors until
it was merged into the Keweenaw Association. He served on the board
of aldermen of the city in 1871, was chairman of the Board of Health,
and in that office was credited with having been instrumental in checking
and eradicating an epidemic of small pox in the city. In 1906 Mr. Ayer
was a director and vice-president of the American Woolen Company (New
Jersey), director and president of the American Woolen Company of New
York, trustee and vice-president of the Central Savings Bank of Lowell,
Mass. ; director and president of the Lowell & Andover Railroad, director
and president of the J. C. Ayer Company, and director of the Tremont
and Suffolk Mills, Lowell, Mass., of the United States Mining Company,
of the International Trust Company, of the Boston Elevated Railway Com-
pany, and of the Columbian National Life Insurance Company. He was
a member of the Algonquin Club, Beacon Society and Country Clubs, of
Boston.
He married in 1858 at Syracuse, N. Y., Miss Cornelia Wheaton. She
died in 1878. Children of this marriage were : Ellen W., James C, Charles
F., and Louise R. He married again at St. Paul, Minn., Miss Ellen Ban-
ning. The children of this marriage were three : Beatrice B., Katharine and
Frederick, Jr.
OF THE UNITED STATES 327
JACOB ROGERS.
Jacob Rogers was born in Exeter, N. H. He was the son of Col.
John and Mary Poor (Cram) Rogers, and grandson of Judge Nathaniel
Rogers. Colonel John Rogers was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy,
cashier of the Old Exeter P)ank from 1808 to 1830, a colonel of the Fourth
Regiment of militia, and chairman of the Board of Selectmen from 1817
to 183 1 and was prominently connected with the leather industry.
The subject of this sketch, Jacob Rogers, was educated at Phillips
Exeter Academy, after which he spent several years at sea in long voyages
to India and China. He settled in Lowell when about twenty, where he
was connected with his brother, John, in the hardware business. There
he remained until 1875, when he became president of the Railroad National
Bank of Lowell, retiring from the presidency several years before the bank
was merged with the other Lowell banks, but still serving as a director.
He was treasurer of the Lowell Gaslight Compa"ny from 1870, when he
was elected president, an office from which he retired in 1003. He was
also a director of the Stony Brook Railroad from 1875. Mr. Rogers was
president of the Kitson Machine Company from 1885 to 1905, when the
property was sold to the Lowell Machine Shop. In 1901 he was elected
president of the Tremont iv Suftolk Mills of Lowell, of which he had long
been a director. He was also a director of various Lowell corporations,
including the Appleton Company, Massachusetts Cotton Mills in Georgia,
Merrimack Manufacturing Co., of the Traders' & Mechanics' Insurance
Co., a director of the Hide & Leather Bank until that institution was
merged in the .State National Bank of Boston, and vice-president of the
Mechanics' Savings Bank of Lowell, Mass.
With Frederick F. Ayer he served as trustee of the estate of Dr. J. C.
Ayer for many years. In politics he was a staunch Republican, and in
1864-5 he was elected to the House of Representatives. In 1875 ^^ was
elected a member of the Lowell Board of Aldermen. He married in 1868
Mar}' Howard, daughter of James G. Carney, of Lowell, and had three
children : Mary Carney, Alice Poor and John Jacob.
JAMES COOK AYER.
James Cook Ayer was born in Ledyard, Conn., May 5, 1818: son
of Frederick and Persis (Cook) Ayer, grandson of Elisha and Hope (Fan-
ning) Ayer and of James and Persis (Herrick) Cook, and a descendant
from John Ayer, who settled at Haverhill, Mass., early in the history of
the colony. Elisha Ayer (1757-1853) was a soldier in the war of the
328 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Revolution. Frederick Ayer (1792-1825), who participated in the War
of 1812, was a manufacturer of woolen and cotton goods, being a pioneer
in these industries in New England. James Cook Ayer spent his early
life in Preston, Conn., and Lowell, Mass. He was educated at Lowell
High School and Westford (Mass.) Academy and at the University of
Pennsylvania, where he took his degree as M.D., 1839. He began his busi-
ness life as a druggist and manufacturer of proprietary medicines in Lowell,
Mass., in 1840, using the name of Ayer on all the products from his labora-
tory and advertising them extensively ; being in reality the pioneer in effec-
tive advertising in newspapers and by means of almanacs that would be
read in the household and preserved for future reference, in which he
spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. He acquired a business in which
he accumulated millions, and in 1877 this business was incorporated as the
J. C. Ayer Company. In 1870 he became treasurer of the Tremont and
of the Suffolk Manufacturing Companies, with mills at Lowell, and at the
time separate corporations, and he helped to effect the consolidation of
these two interests as the Tremont & Suffolk Mills, with a capital of $1,200,-
000, in 1871, when he was elected treasurer of the new corporation, re-
signing the position after a few months, but continuing as a director and
large stockholder, as he had been in the separate corporations. He built
the Lowell and Andover Railroad, which added greatly to the prosperity
of the city of his adoption.
Mr. Ayer was married November 3, 1850, to Josephine Mellen,
daughter of the Hon. Royal and Direxa (Claflin) Southwick, and
their three children were : Frederick Fanning Ayer, Henry Southwick Ayer
and Lesley Josephine Ayer. Mr. Ayer erected a beautiful home in Paw-
tucket Street, Lowell, and in 1892 his widow, then a resident of Paris,
France, and his son, Frederick F. Ayer, of New York City, presented the
property to the "Home for Young Women and Children," then housed on
John Street, and the institution founded in 1876-7 was carried on as "The
Ayer Home for Yoimg Women and Children."
'Mr. Ayer was afflicted with brain trouble late in life, which caused his
death, July 3, 1878.
RICHARD KITSON.
Richard Kitson was born in Cleckheaton, Yorkshire, England, in
1814; the son of John Kitson, a card clothing manufacturer. He received
a fair education in the schools of his native place and then joined his father
in the manufacture of cards for combing. He assisted his father in mak-
ing and patenting a machine for the manufacture of needle-pointed card
teeth, which revolutionized the manufacture of card clothing. The patent
expired in 1849, '"icl financial losses brought about by the dishonesty of
OF THE UNITED STATES 329
others placed both father and son in business straits. Consequently, when
Francis Calvert, of Lowell, Mass., U. S. A., who at the time was visiting
Cleckheaton for the purpose of examining the Kitson cards, proposed that
Richard go back with him to Lowell with the view of establishing a card
clothing business there, the young man accepted, and as a result had the
honor of manufacturing the first needle-pointed card clothing in America.
Mr Kitson next remodeled and thereby improved the picker then in use,
and at the same time invented a single cotton-opening machine which came
into universal use in the cotton mills throughout New England. Whitin
and other inventors and manufacturers of lappers had used beaters up to
the time Kitson introduced his needle-pointed cylinder. Through Mr. Kit-
son's inventive genius, the principle afterward applied in the "trunk sys-
tem" for opening and cleaning cotton fibre was next introduced. Lentil
i860 all of his machines had been made by outside manufacturers, but the
increasing demand prompted him to erect a shop wherein to manufacture
these machines himself. This he did, and the business so prospered that,
in 1874, it was incorporated under the style of the Kitson Machine Com-
pany, Mr. Kitson becoming president and holding office up to the time of
his death. Mr. Kitson was a man of great mechanical genius, and to him
the textile world owes much for the advancement made in the manufacture
of machines for the manipulation of cotton.
While in England Mr. Kitson married Sarah Reynolds, who accom-
panied him to America. Six children were born of this union, one of
whom, Emma, became the wife of Thomas Stott, a card clothing manu-
facturer of Lowell. Mr. Kitson was survived by his wife and two chil-
dren, Charlotte and Mrs. Stott. He died in Lowell, Mass., July 14, 1885.
WILLIAM ALVORD BURKE.
William Alvord Burke was born in Windsor, Vt., July 7, 181 1, the
son of Benjamin and Roxana (Alcord) Burke, a grandson of Solomon
Burke, one of the first settlers of Windsor, Vt.. and a descendant of
Richard and Mary (Parmenter) Burke, of Sudbury, Mass., who came to
this country about the year 1660.
His early education was obtained in the public schools and at the
Academy of Josiah Dunham at Windsor, Vt., where he very early exhibited
unusual powers for the acquisition of knowledge and began the study of
Latin at the early age of seven years. It was his ambition to pursue a
collegiate education, but circumstances not favoring such a course, upon the
removal of his parents to Nashua, N. H., at the age of fifteen he entered
the machine shop of the Nashua Mfg. Co., where he worked for several
330 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
years, and also in the shops of the Locks and Canals in Lowell, Mass.
(now the Lowell Machine Shop), up to January, 1834, when he was placed
in charge of the machine shop of Ira Gay & Co., of North Chelmsford,
Mass. ; here he remained for two years. He was appointed Master Mechanic
of the Boott Cotton Mills, of Lowell, Mass., in 1836, where he remained
for three years, when further promotion awaited him in his selection as
Master Mechanic of the newly erected machine shop of the Amoskeag Mfg.
Co., of Manchester, N. H. He put into successful operation, and had
charge of these works for si.x years. His position necessitated the design-
ing and building of cotton machinery, which afterwards became a chief
occupation of his life; as at this time it was impossible to obtain any
machinery from England, he was, therefore, left to his own resources,
or to the very few and crude drawings obtained elsewhere.
In 1845, the shops of the Locks and Canals in Lowell, Mass.,
were sold to a corporation, which later became known all over the
world as the Lowell Machine Shop, and Mr. Burke was invited by
those who knew his ability to take charge and develop the business.
These works were then, and still remained for many years, the largest of
their kind in the United States. In this charge Mr. Burke remained
for seventeen years. During that time the shop made nearly every sort
of machinery from a sewing-machine to a locomotive; but their principal
business was then, as it became altogether later on, the building of
cotton machinery. In 1862 he was elected agent of the Boott Cotton
Mills, of Lowell, Mass., in which he had previously been master mechanic,
where he remained for si.x years, his administration proving an emi-
nent success. In 1868 he resigned, and was offered the treasurership
of the Suffolk Manufacturing Company, and Tremont ]\rills (now known
as the Tremont and Suffolk Mills) of Lowell. Here he remained for two
years, but circumstances not proving congenial, he resigned and shortly
afterwards was appointed assistant treasurer of the Great Falls Mfg. Co.,
of Somersworth, N. H., and the Dwight Mfg. Co., of Chicopee, Mass.
Here also he remained for six years supervising the renovation and re-
building of the mills, and placing them in a condition where they have
since become among the most successful mills in the country.
In 1876, Mr. Burke received his last appointment, as treasurer of the
Lowell Machine Shop, of which in his earlier years he had been the first
superintendent. Here he remained until declining years advised him that
his work as an active business man was over, and he resigned in 1885.
During his treasurership, almost every building was remodeled and enlarged,
some new ones were added and the working force was largely increased.
Mr. Burke was frequently consulted on matters pertaining to cotton
manufacturing, and he was director of many of the most successful cotton
manufacturing corporations. He was one of the charter members of the
New England Cotton Manufacturers' Association { now known as the
OF THE UNITED STATES 331
National Association of Cotton Manufacturers) and one of its first vice-
presidents, from 1865 to 1873. He was one of the original corporators
of the Mechanics Savings Bank of Lowell, Mass., and its first president
from June, 1861, to June, 1886, when he retired.
He took but little active part in politics, but served his city as alderman
for two years during the Civil War.
Mr. Burke was twice married, first to Catherine French, of Bedford,
N. H., by whom he had five children; and second to Elizabeth Mary Derby,
who survived him, but died in February, 1900.
Mr. Burke died in Lowell, Mass., May 28, 1887, at the age of seventy-
six years.
DAVID ANTHONY BRAYTON
David Anthony Brayton, prominent in the business and financial
enterprises of Fall River, was born on the 2d of April, 1824, in the
village of Swansea, Massachusetts, and died in London, England, on the
20th of August, 1881. He was the son of Israel and Kezia (Anthony)
Brayton, and his ancestry includes many of the pioneers of Rhode Island
and Massachusetts, men who were foremost in the annals of New Eng-
land. His uncle, David Anthony, was the first agent of the Fall River
Manufactory, one of the two original cotton mills built in Fall River
(then called Troy), in 1813. He was also a relative of Dexter Wheeler, a
promoter of this corporation, who had already spun yarn by horsepower
in Rehoboth as early as 1807, and of Nathaniel Wheeler, one of the founders
of the Troy Cotton and Woolen Manufactory, the other corporation or- .
ganizing in 1813.
David A. Brayton, who received his name from his maternal grand-
father, David Anthony, obtained the rudiments of a practical education in
the schools of Fall River and Somerset, Massachusetts. The marked
intelligence which he early displayed, combined with his diligence and
close application, placed him in the front rank among his associates at
school, and before reaching his majority he was well equipped for the
active duties of life. While yet a minor he showed his aptitude for
business, and began his independent efforts by shipping a cargo to Cuba,
going there in the same vessel. In later years he carried on an extensive
business with the West Indies, importing molasses and sugar in vessels,
of which he was the principal owner.
In 1849 lie became interested in the discovery of gold on the Pacific
Coast, and sailed for California in the ship "Mary Mitchell" in August of
that year. On returning to Fall River in 1850 he engaged in the manu-
facture of flour, with Silas Bullard as partner, and erected the Bristol
332 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
County Flour Mills, the first industry of its kind in this part of Massa-
chusetts, of which he afterwards became the sole proprietor.
As its name indicates, the First National Bank of Fall River was
the first in this section of Massachusetts established under the National
Bank Act and was organized January 23, 1864. To David A. Brayton
this institution owes its origin and to it he, gave his valuable counsel, serv-
ing as a member of the Board of Directors from its organization until
his death.
Mr. Brayton was an acknowledged leader of men, endowed with
sterling integrity, clearness of intellect, and sound judgment; a man of
diversified interests, with a comprehensive grasp of the details of every
enterprise with which he was connected. He realized the great progress
which had already been made in the cotton industry since its advent into
Fall River in 181 1; he readily foretold the possibilities of its future
growth, and appreciated the advantages aflforded by the extensive harbor
and the natural water supply of the city. In 1865, just after the Civil War,
confident of success in this undertaking, David A. Brayton, with his
brother, John S. Brayton, and his nephew, Bradford M. C. Durfee, planned
the erection of large cotton mills. A charter of incorporation was granted
them on Feb. 15, 1866, under the name of Durfee Mills, so-called in honor
of Bradford Durfee, whose son was the largest stockholder. Eleven acres
of land were purchased, bordering upon the stream from which Fall River
obtains its name, and the foundation of this manufactory was laid. As a
result of the indefatigable energy and business ability of David A. Brayton,
Durfee Mills Number One was completed and in full operation in 1867 ;
in 1871 mill Number Two was built upon the same plan ; in 1880 Durfee
Mills Number Three, somewhat smaller than the others, was added, and
these formed, , at the time of their erection, the largest print cloth plant in
a single enclosure in the country. He was Treasurer of this corporation
from its organization until his death, and this group of granite buildings,
with its commanding presence, is a lasting monument to the foresight,
wisdom, and undaunted perseverance of David Anthony Brayton.
One of the greatest achievements of his life, possibly the greatest,
next to the erection of the Durfee Mills, was the result of his investment
in the Arnold Print Works, at North Adams, Massachusetts, in 1876, at a
time when that corporation had gone into bankruptcy. This failure had
caused great depression. Mills were closed, men were idle, and Mr.
Brayton's purchase of this large plant was a lasting benefit and stimulus to
the town of North Adams, giving confidence to its business enterprises
and employment to its people. A new organization was formed with David
A. Brayton as president (and largest stockholder), Albert C. Houghton as
treasurer, William A. Gallup, clerk, and Caleb G. Evans, originator of
designs and seller of goods. Several years later, at a dinner given by Mr.
Gallup, who for twenty-five years had been connected with the Arnold
OF THE UNITED STATES 333
Print Works, the President of this corporation, Albert C. Houghton, paid
the following tribute to the memory of Mr. Brayton : "Another name
of even higher incentive to us is that of David A. Brayton, the restorer,
as Mr. Arnold was the originator of the industry we represent. At the
time of hardest trial, when friends were faint and foes were fierce, he took
upon himself our jeopardy, and gave his capital and his business fame
to our support. A man of calmest and most far-sighted judgment, upright,
straightforward, of indomitable will, resistless energy and creative business
intuition ; the serene and chiseled features of that portrait are the fit outward
presentment of the most remarkable business associate and leader the
Arnold Print Works has had."
Mr. Brayton, at the time of his death, was director in several other
corporations ; namely. Fall River Iron Works Company, which at that time
was devoted exclusively to the iron industry; the Metacomet Manufactur-
ing Company, Fall River Machine Company, Fall River and Providence
Steamboat Company, Fall River Gas Company and the Fall River Manu-
facturers' Mutual Insurance Company.
As a citizen Mr. Brayton was ever alert to the best interests of the
city, supported every effort for the growth and prosperity of the com-
munity, and his successful career made an indelible impression upon the
commercial development of Fall River.
He was an active member of the First Congregational Qiurch, and
prominent in the promotion of its work and welfare. He was unosten-
tatious in his benevolence, and liberally assisted those worthy of his aid.
David A. Brayton was married in Fall River, ^lay i, 1 851, to Nancy R.
Jenckes, daughter of John and Nancy (Bellows) Jenckes. They had five
children, Nannie Jenckes, David Anthony, John Jenckes, Elizabeth Hitch-
cock and Dana Dwight Brayton.
THOMAS JEFFERSON COOLIDGE.
Thomas Jefferson Coolidge was born in Boston, Mass., August 23,
1831 ; son of Joseph and Ellen Wayles (Randolph) Jefferson. His first
ancestor in America, John Coolidge, came from England in 1630 and settled
in that part of Massachusetts Bay Colony known as Watertown, which
embraced all the territory on the borders of the Charles River beyond
Newtowne (Cambridge). He was made a freeman of Watertown in 1636,
and soon after acquired considerable property in Boston. His descendant
in the seventh g-eneration, Joseph Coolidge, was born in Boston, in 1798,
and was graduated from Harvard College A. B. 1817 and A. M. 1820. Upon
leaving college, he travelled in Europe, and while at Pisa he became ac-
334 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
quainted with Lord Byron, who in his journal of 1821 records an account
of his friendship with the young American. Thomas Jefferson CooHd^e,
his fourth son, was named for his ilhistrious great-grandfather, the third
President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence. He, with his brother, Sidney, was instructed at the best schools of
Geneva and Dresden, and the boys remained in Europe for eight years.
In 1847, Thomas Jefifer.son Coolidge entered the sophomore class of
Harvard College, was graduated A.B., 1850. and took his master degree
in course. He had a decided preference for trade, his father being a
china merchant, and on leaving college he secured a clerkship in the store
of William Perkins, in Boston. In 1853 he left the employ of this gentle-
man to become a partner with Joseph P. Gardner in the East India trade,
under the firm name of Gardner & Coolidge. Later he became interested
in banking and manufacturing enterprises. In 1858 he was elected presi-
dent of the Boott Cotton Mills Company, operating large mills at Lowell,
and he rescued that corporation from financial straits, and placed it upon a
prosperous and successful footing. He resided in France from 1865 to
1867, when he returned to Boston and became treasurer of the Lawrence
Manufacturing Company, operating five mills at Lowell. He resigned this
position in 1880 to assume the presidency of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa
Fe Railroad, and it was again his mission to resuscitate a flagging industry.
He piloted it through the period of depression, and, in 1882, when it was
again upon a firm basis, he resigned. On returning to America from France,
he temporarily assumed the presidency of the Oregon Railway and Naviga-
tion Company. He returned to the manufacturing business the next year,
and became identified with large New England cotton manufactories, includ-
ing the Armory, the Dwight and the Amoskeag Manufacturing Corporations,
being treasurer of the latter for a time and president afterwards. He also
served as a director in the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, in the
Boston & Lowell Railroad, and in numerous other railroad enterprises. He
was a director in the Merchants' National Bank, of Boston, and the Old Col-
ony Trust Company, and served as treasurer and manager in various philan-
thropic associations. Harvard Corporation elected him as overseer in
1886, and he was re-elected in 1891. He served the city of Boston as Park
Commissioner, 1875 and 1876; was a delegate to the Pan-American Con-
gress in 1889; was appointed, April 28, 1892. by President Harrison, U. S.
Minister to France as successor to Hon. Whitelaw Reid, resigned ; and he
served up to the close of Mr. Harrison's administration in 1893. He was
a member of the Anglo-American Commission which met at Quebec, Aug.
25, 1898.
Mr. Coolidge gave to the village of Manchester-by-the-sea, the location
of his summer residence, a public library building costing $40,000, and to
Harvard University he gave, in 1884, the Jefferson Physical Laboratory,
which building was erected at a cost of $115,000. He received the honorary
(W\,
OF THE UNITED STATES 335
degree of LL.D. from Harvard in 1902. He was a member of the Somerset
Club, of Boston, and the Harvard and University Clubs, of New York,
and he gave generously to the various public charities of Boston.
Mr. Coolidge married, in 1852, Hetty S., daughter of the Hon. William
(1786-1862) and Mary Anne (Cutler) Appleton, and a descendant from
the emigrant ancestor, Samuel Appleton (1586-1670), who came from
Little Waldinfield, England, in 1635, was made a freeman in Ipswicli,
Mass. Bay Colony, May 25, 1636, and was deputy to the General Court
in 1637. Their son, T. Jefferson, Jr., became president of the Old Colony
Trust Company, and their three daughters married Mr. Lucius Sargent,
Mr. Frederick Sears, Jr., and Mr. Thomas Xewbold.
WILLL\M WALLACE CRAPO.
William Wallace Crapo was born in Dartmouth, Mass., May 16, 1830;
son of Hon. Henry Howland and Mary Ann (Slocum) Crapo, and a de-
scendant of Peter Crapo, who married Penelope White, May 31, 1704.
Henry Howland Crapo was also a native of Dartmouth, born of parents who
were in humble circumstances, and, self-taught, he became a surveyor and a
school teacher, removed to New Bedford, where he held the offices of town
clerk, treasurer and collector of taxes for nearly twenty years. In 1857 he
removed to Flint, Michigan; in 1862 was elected mayor of that city, served
for two years as state senator, and in 1864 was elected governor of the
state and held that office for four years.
William Wallace Crapo was the only son in a family of ten children.
He acquired his preliminary education in the public schools of New Bedford
ajid at the Friends' Academy; was fitted for college at Phillips Academy,
Andover, and was graduated from Yale in the class of 1852. He decided
to make the law his profession, attended the Dane Law School at Harvard,
and studied law in the office of the Hon. John Clifford, of New Bedford.
February, r855, he was admitted to the Bristol bar; April, 1855, he was
elected city solicitor of New Bedford, and held that office for twelve con-
secutive years. He followed the practice of his profession in New Bedford ;
alone, 1855-62; as senior of the firm of Crapo & Stone, 1862-69; as a
member of the firm of Marston & Crapo, 1869-78, and as senior member
of the firm of Crapo, Clifford & Clifford, from 1878.
In 1856 he entered the political field, making his maiden speech in
behalf of John C. Fremont, the first candidate of the Republican Party for
President, and later in the same year he was elected to the Massachusetts
House of Representatives. In 1857 he was strongly urged to accept nomina-
tion as the Republican candidate for State Senator of his district, but his
336 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
pressing professional duties compelled him to decline the honor. He
rapidly advanced to a notable prominence in his profession, in which he
acquired a high reputation. He was actively interested in the growth and
prosperity of the city of New Bedford, was a prominent factor in the es-
tablishment of its water works, and from 1865 to 1875 was chairman of
the Board of Water Commissioners.
During the Civil War he heartily supported the government, and during
the whole period of its duration gave freely of his time, energy and means
to the Northern cause.
Mr. Crapo's interest in cotton manufacturing began with his invest-
ments in the Wamsutta Mills in 1846. Later he was chosen a director of
that corporation, and, in 1889, was chosen to succeed Andrew G. Pierce
as its president, and has served in that capacity up to present time (iqii).
In 1892 he acquired an interest in the Potomska Mills, in 1882 in the
Acushnet, and in 1893 "^ t'^^ Hathaway Mills, all of New Bedford, and
served on the directorate of each of these corporations, and also as president
of the Potomska Mills (1911).
Mr. Crapo's deservedly high reputation as a man of weight and ability
rests pre-eminently upon the services he rendered his party and the people at
large in the National House of Representatives. Being elected to fill a
vacancy in the Forty-fourth Congress, he was re-elected to the three suc-
ceeding Congresses and declined renomination in 1882. He was a member
of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Forty-fifth Congress, and a
member of the Committee on Banking and Currency in the Forty-sixth ;
as chairman of the same committee in the following Congress, he rendered
valuable service in obtaining the passage of the bill for extending the
charters of the national banks, to which there was great and determined
opposition. He was also influential in obtaining the removal of the tax on
the capital and deposits of banks and bankers and in securing the direct
application of the law to the national banks. He bore a conspicuous part
in various other legislative measures of importance, and the purity and
integrity of his motives and conduct in both public and private aiTairs was
conceded by all. He was several times mentioned as a possible candidate
for gubernatorial honors, and his failure to receive nomination is attributed
largely to his aversion to the employment of the ordinary political methods
of the day. Mr. Crapo was an active champion of the New Bedford fish-
ing interests, and strongly recommended the abrogation of the fishing
articles of the treaty of Washington. He was an elector-at-large from
Massachusetts on the Republican National ticket in 1904, and in the
Electoral College that met in 1905 he cast the vote of the Massachusetts
electors for Theodore Roosevelt as President of the United States. From
the outset of his career he was called upon to fill many positions of trust
which demanded the exhibition of those qualities of sagacity, prudence and
good judgment which he possessed in such large measure. He was guardian
OF THE UNITED STATES Zi7
and trustee of many estates, president of the Mechanics' National Bank, of
New Bedford, from 1870 to 1904; he became a director of the International
Trust Company, of Boston, in 1883, and was for some years a vice-president
of that institution, his successor being Frederick Ayer. Has been president
of the New Bedford I'nstitution for Savings since 1896. He was also
President of the Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad Company.
A diligent student of the early history of the colony, he made many
valuable contributions to the historical literature of his state, especially
in regard to Dartmouth, and delivered a masterly address on the occasion
of the centennial celebration of that town in 1864.
Yale University conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D. in
1882. He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and
served as president of the Old Dartmouth Society.
Jan. 22, 1857, Mr. Crapo married Sarah Davis, daughter of George
and Serena (Davis) Tappan, of Newburyport. Arthur Tappan (1786-
1865), the educationalist and anti-slavery agitator, Benj. Tappan (1773-
1857), U. S. Judge and U. S. Senator for Ohio, and Henry Philip Tappan
(1805-81) president of the University of Michigan, were all of this same
Tappan family. The children of William W. and Sarah Davis (Tappan)
Crapo were: Henry Howland and Sanford Tappan, who became general
manager of the Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad.
JOHN HOWARD NICHOLS.
John Howard Nichols was born in Kingston, N. H., December 18,
1837, son of Nicholas and Mary (Barstow) Nichols. His early life was
spent in his native town and in Exeter, N. H., where he attended the
Phillips Academy. On completion of his course he taught school for one
year at Stratham, N. H. When eighteen years of age, he came to Boston
and engaged as clerk with a tea importing house on Central Wharf. Here
he came under the notice of John L. Gardner, who recognized his sterling
qualities, and in 1858 engaged the youth as supercargo on the bark
"Arthur," which was about to sail around the Cape to China. Some four
months later, upon Mr. Nichols' arrival in that country, he received a
letter from Mr. Gardner requesting that he remain in China as special
agent for the house. Mr. Nichols accepted and spent ten years in all in
the East, returning to visit America once during that time. He was the
first merchant to import tea to America from the Island of Formosa,
following up the opening of the various ports of Japan with successive
visits to the Empire and studying the possible effects of the new market on
American trade. He resigned his position of Eastern representative in
338 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
1868, and returned to America, devoting his attention to the importing
of Japanese and Chinese teas. In January, 1876, he disassociated himself
from this business to accept the treasurership of the Dwight Manufacturing
Co., Chicopee, Alass. Under Mr. Nichols' management this corporation
became one of the most profitable textile manufactories in New England.
Mr. Nichols established a branch cotton mill at Alabama City, Alabama,
and through this means added greatly to the earnings of the corporation.
During his twenty-nine years of management the capacity of the mills
was increased from 120,000 to 200,000 spindles; dividends to the amount of
$3,324,000 were paid, and a debt of $300,000 on the plant gave place to a
surplus equal to the amount of the capital stock. In July, 1905, Mr.
Nichols resigned as treasurer to become president, filling this place until
his death in September of the same year. In 1886, upon the urgent request
of some of his associates, Mr. Nichols became treasurer of the Great Falls
Manufacturing Company, and the same success which marked his manage-
ment of the Dwight Manufacturing Co. was achieved with the Great
Falls Mfg. Co.; during the fourteen years Mr. Nichols was treasurer the
plant was rehabilitated and the surplus largely increased, in addition to
substantial dividends paid out during this period. At the time of his
death, Mr. Nichols was also president of the Manchester Mills, Man-
chester, N. H., and the Lyman Mills, Holyoke, Mass.
In memory of his son, Howard Gardner, who after graduating
from Harvard in 1892 took charge of the erection of the Alabama mills of
the Dwight Manufacturing Co., and through the co-operation of his father
created the model mill village in Alabama, and who met with a fatal ac-
cident while engaged in the performance of his duties, Mr. Nichols erected
at Alabama City a Public Library Building. He gave to the Hale Hospital,
Haverhill, Mass., when that edifice was rebuilt in 1900, the administration
building, also in memory of his son ; and erected and dedicated to the
memory of his father and mother a public library in his native village,
Kingston, N. H.
March 15, 1870, Mr. Nichols married Charlotte Peabody, daughter of
Daniel, and Charlotte (Tenney) Kimball, a descendant of Richard Kimball
(1595-1675), who immigrated from Ipswich, England. Four children were
born of this union, one son, Howard Gardner, and three daughters :
Eleanor, who married Dr. Henry O. Marcey, Jr. ; Grace ; and Charlotte,
who married Edwin Farnham Greene, treasurer of the Pacific Mills.
Mr. Nichols died at his home in Newton Mass., September 15, 1905,
being survived by his widow and three daughters.
ULj^yyti/
OF THE UNITED STATES 339
STEPHEN GREENE.
Stephen Greene was born at Hope, Rhode Island, September 27,
1 85 1, the second son of Alvin and Maria (Arnold) Greene. In October.
1856, the family removed to Yarmouth, Maine, where they remained until
January, 1859. They then returned to Rhode Island, Mr. Greene engaging
as superintendent of a brick cotton mill in White Rock, owned by Messrs.
Babcock & Morse. The subject of this sketch, while in Maine, had
attended school a portion of the time, and on returning to Rhode Island
continued with his elementary studies in the district school. \Mien he
was twelve years of age, he built the fires, cared for the schoolhouse and
assisted in teaching the lower classes. He next attended the Westerly High
School, and upon graduation, having at various times worked under his
father in cotton mills, he was engaged by Babcock & Morse as "doffer"
and "spare hand.'' He soon aspired to a life higher than that of a mill-
hand, and his close attention to duty won him promotion as "second-hand"
of the spooling-room and dressing-room. He also watched the mill at
noon and rang the bell to call the operatives from dinner. In addition, he
studied music and became a proficient player on the melodion and church
organ. When sixteen years old, he was made overseer of the carding room.
In the autumn of 1870, with his brother Benjamin, he visited New York, and
while there obtained a phrenological chart which greatly influenced his
determination to take up the business of civil engineering. He subsequently
entered Brown University, his examination admitting him to the second
year's class in the civil engineering course, and he was graduated B. P.
with the rank of Phi Beta Kappa, 1873. The same year he began work in
the office of N. B. Schubarth, architect and engineer of Providence. He
was married Dec. 15, 1874, to Natalie L., daughter of his employer.
In April, 1875, Mr. Greene accepted a position in the office of D. M.
Thompson & Co., mill architects and engineers, and the same year he
became superintendent of construction of the Hills Grove Mills, erected
by Thomas J. Hill. At Hills Grove was born his first son, Edwin Farnham
Greene. In November, 1879, he returned to Providence, to take a position
in the office of A. D. Lockwood & Co., Mr. Lockwood being recognized as
the successor to David Whitman, deceased, as the leading mill engineer
of New England. In Providence, his son, Stephen Harold, was born
April 27, 1880, and Everett Arnold, May 14, 1885. On March i, 1882,
Stephen Greene became a member of the firm of Lockwood, Greene & Co.,
of Providence, the members of the firm being Amos D. Lockwood, J. W.
Danielson, and Stephen Greene. During the first year of this partnership,
he made an extended tour through the Southern States, and with so
magnetic a pusher in the field, the business of the firm rapidly increased.
In the spring of 1884 Mr. Lockwood died, and while his son-in-law, Mr.
Danielson, the other partner, continued in the firm as advisor, the business
340 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
was virtually in the hands of the young mill engineer. He was at this
time instrumental in organizing, on the foundation of the Ocean Mill
property at Newburyport, Mass., the Whitefield Mills, with Seth M. Mil-
liken as a principal stockholder, and in November, 1886, he removed his
family to Newburyport and took an active part in the organization and
operation of the new mill as treasurer, and also continued an engineering
office through which he could keep in touch with the great manufacturing
world, of which he had already become a prominent factor. The White-
field Mills venture was not financially successful, and he determined to
remove the machinery to the South, and take advantage of the proximity
of the mill to the cotton fields and cheap labor. This was the pioneer
movement of transporting an entire Northern cotton mill to Southern soil,
and the prosperous Spartan Mill of Spartanburg, S. C, was the result.
He removed his engineering office to Boston in January. 1890, and became a
middleman between the two sections, and Lockwood, Greene & Co. built most
of the large mills in the South and added two million spindles to that section,
or one-third of the spindle capacity of the entire South. The firm also
reorganized the mills of the Pepperell Mfg. Co., the Chicopee Mfg. Co., and
the Androscoggin Mills.
Mr. Greene was a director of many of the largest and most successful
mills in the South and North and a director of several of the insurance
companies. He designed the plants of the Crompton & Knowles Loom
Works, the Plymouth Cordage Co., the Saco & Pettee Machine Shops, the
Atlas Tack Company's factory, Ginn & Company's Publishing Plant, the
American Optical Company's buildings, and many other prominent plants.
After 1890 he resided in Newton Centre, where, in 1893, another child,
Frederick Hartwell, was born. Mr. Greene died in Newton Centre, Nov.
7, 1901.
EDWIN FARNHAM GREENE.
Edwin Farnham Greene was born in Hills Grove, a suburb of
Providence, Rhode Island, February 9, 1879, the eldest son of Stephen
and Natalie L. (Schubarth) Greene and grandson of Alvin and Maria
(Arnold) Greene, and Niles B. and Elizabeth C. (Reed) Schubarth. (See
sketch of Stephen Greene, Ibid.) Until November, 1886, the subject of
this sketch lived in Providence, R. I. He then removed with his family to
Newburyport, Mass., his father having been instrumental in organizing
the Whitefield Mills of that city. Edwin Farnham Greene attended the
public schools in both his native town and Newburyport. and then became
a pupil at the Worcester Academy, being graduated in 1897. Subse-
quently, he entered Brown University, and completing his course, received
£M^ BiTE' i? IVILCS^fS <3 BRU ATjr
qY cn^' o/ ^ty<^
OF THE UNITED STATES 341
the degree of A. B., in 1901. November 7, 1901, his father died, and in the
beginning of the following year Edwin Farnham Greene was elected to
succeed him as president and member of the firm of Lockwood, Greene &
Co., a position which he still holds (1911). From July, 1905, to December,
1907, he served as treasurer of the Dwight Manufacturing Company, and
in October, 1906, accepted the office of treasurer of the Lawton Mills
Corporation. This position he resigned in March, 1908, having the pre-
vious November been elected to the treasurership of the Pacific Mills.
Other offices held by Mr. Green in 191 1 were: director of National
Shawmut Bank ; Old Colony Trust Co. ; Boston & Maine Railroad ; Nyanza
Mills; Boston Mfrs. Mutual Fire Insurance Co.; American Mutual Liabil-
ity Insurance Co.; Dwight Mfg. Co.; Great Falls Mfg. Co.; Lawton Mills
Corporation; The Dallas Mfg. Co.; Colonial Securities Co., trustee of
Worcester Academy and Brown University.
June 20, 1903, Mr. Greene married Charlotte, daughter of J. Howard
and Charlotte Peabody (Kimball) Nichols, and in 1910 had two children,
John Gardner, born October 28, 1904, and Edwin Farnham Greene, Jr.,
born July 14, 1910.
THOMAS GOODALL.
Thomas Goodall was born in the town of Dewsbury, Yorkshire,
England, September i, 1823, son of George and Tabitha Armitage Goodall.
The subject of this sketch was left an orphan when a mere infant, and at
a very early age was placed in a woolen mill as an apprentice, where he
remained for eleven years; by 1840, being then seventeen years old, he had
mastered the details of the business and had charge of the buying of
materials and the disposing of the product. When he became of age, he
started out to work for himself with all of his belongings tied up in a bundle
and only five shillings in his pocket. In 1844 he set up in business for
himself and met with a fair degree of success.
In 1846 he came to the United States, resided for a brief time in
Connecticut and then removed to South Hadley, Mass., where he obtained
a good position which he later resigned in favor of a needy countryman
with a large family, and went to Rhode Island, where he remained nearly
two years. He then returned for a short time to South Hadley, but in
1849, he went to West Winchester, N. H. Finding the business oppor-
tunities of that place inadequate to his ambition, he removed in 1852 to
Troy, N. H., where he engaged in the manufacture of satinets and beavers,
to which he added the manufacture of horse blankets, of which he was the
pioneer in this country, being the first to manufacture shaped horse blankets
342 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
and put them up fifty in a bale, fie presented many bales of blankets for
the soldiers of the Union in the Civil War and also for the Navy.
In 1865 he sold his plant to a syndicate of Keene, N. H., manufacturers,
who have carried on the work to the present day. Mr. Goodall then paid
an extended visit to his native land, and while there engaged in the ex-
portation of lap-robes manufactured expressly for the United States and
Canada.
He made numerous trips to the United States on business, and at length
determined to establish a factory for the production of the goods he had been
exporting from England, and purchased in 1867 from William Miller and
James O. Clark, of Sanford, Me., a flannel factory and grist and saw-mill,
with the entire water privilege of the Mousam controlled by them at this
point, and early in the following year had two sets of cards and ten looms
in operation, with fifty operatives producing carriage robes and kersey
blankets. The Sanford Mills now employ about 1,500 operative.*, and the
growth of the Goodall enterprises which had their inception in this first
venture of Thomas Goodall have converted the rustic farming village of
Sanford into an important commercial centre.
In 1884, Mr. Goodall resigned his position as president of the Sanford
Mills Corporation. In 1895 he retired from business and relinquished his
interest in favor of his sons, Louis B., George B., and Ernest M.
April 29, 1849, Mr. Goodall married Ruth, second daughter of Jerry
Waterhouse, a leading manufacturer of South Hadley, Mass., and had five
children, Louis Bertrand and George Benjamin (twins), Ernest Montrose,
Ida May, and Lila Helen, the last two dying in infancy. Mr. Goodall died
at Sanford, Me., May 11, 1910, his three sons surviving him.
CHARLES LEWIS HILDRETH.
Charles Lewis Hildreth was born October 9, 1823, in Concord, New
Hampshire, being the son of Elijah and Isabella (Caldwell) Hildreth. The
family of Hildreth is of English origin, some of its members coming
to this country at a very early period. Richard, the common founder of
the Hildreth family in the United States, was a pioneer settler in j\Iassa-
chusetts.
When the subject of this sketch was about three years old, the family
moved to Nashua, N. H., where he attended Grace's private school until he
entered Appleton Academy at New Ipswich, N. H. After completing his
educational course, Mr. Hildreth went to Lowell, and, as an apprentice in
iron working, for three years served at the Lowell Machine Shop, and
then became a contractor in the same shop, During the business depres-
OF THE UNITED STATES 343
sion of 1858, he again made a change, removing to Philadelphia and enter-
ing the employ of the Industrial Works as foreman. In i860, he returned
to his former position at Lowell, and two years later was transferred to the
draughting room. In 1865, he assumed the responsible duties of general
foreman, and as such remained until 1879, when he was appointed superin-
tendent. In 1905, he resigned this latter position, and went to live at
Westford, Middlesex County, Mass.
In politics, Mr. Hildreth was a member of the Free Soil Party, but
later became a staunch Republican, and served as an alderman from Ward
I to the city of Lowell in 1868-69-70. July, 1846, Mr. Hildreth married
at Nashua, N. H., Mary M. Lovejoy, daughter of Caleb Lovejoy, and two
children were born to them, Emily Frances and Ella Francelia.
He died at Westford, Mass., February 26, 1909.
CRANMORE NESMITH WALLACE.
Cranmore X. Wallace was born in Draintree, Mass., November 6,
1844, son of William Vinson and Maria (Keene) Wallace. His father
was of Scotch-Irish descent, while his mother's ancestors were English,
of the early Plymouth Colony, and on both sides the great-grandfather
was a Revolutionary soldier. Studying in the public schools of his native
town until nearly eighteen years of age, the subject of this sketch then
entered military service in behalf of the Union forces, serving as volunteer
in four dififerent army corps in the Department of North Carolina and the
Army of the Potomac, and upon the expiration of his term of service he
re-enlisted and remained until the close of the Civil War, and rose from
the ranks to a staff officer. In 1865, Mr. Wallace was engaged as office
clerk by the Boston Flax Mills of Braintree, Mass., predecessor of the
Ludlow Mfg. Co. Associates. In 1884 he became the selling agent and
was later made president of the .company. During his connection with
these mills, he was largely influential in their successful growth.
Mr. Wallace held various civil positions, being a member of the
Massachusetts Legislature, in 1875, Water Commissioner and member of
the School Committee. He became trustee of the Massachusetts Homeo-
pathic Hospital and Massachusetts Soldiers' Home, and was a member
of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society, Bostonian Society,
and the Grand Army of the Republic, being Past Commander of Edward
W. Kinsley Post 113. In 1889 he served as Quartermaster General of
the Department of Massachusetts, member of the Executive Committee and
chairman of the Sub-Committee, in 1890, when the National Meeting was
held in Boston, member of the Executive Committee and chairman of the
344 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Parade Committee and Assistant Adjutant General of the National De-
partment of the United States, in 1904, at the time of the corps parade in
Boston, member of the personal staff of Gen. A. R. Chaffee at the inaugu-
ration of President Roosevelt in 1905, member of the Boston Athletic
Association, Algonquin Club, Eastern Yacht Club, Exchange Club, the
New Boston Riding Club, Society of the Army of the Potomac and other
organizations, in all of which he has kept up a lively interest. In 191 1, his
legal residence was in Boston, and he also had a summer home in Beverly.
On December 12, 1882, Mr. Wallace married Eunice, daughter of
Jesse and Nancy Bates Sprague.
WILLIAM HEXRY WELLINGTON.
William Henry Wellington was born in Cambridge, Middlesex
County, Mass., Dec. 19, 1849; son of William W. (a physician) and
Martha B. (Carter) Wellington. He attended the public schools in Cam-
bridge until eighteen years of age, and in November, 1867, entered the
employ of N. Boynton & Company, cotton duck merchants and manu-
facturers, located at 87 Commercial Street, Boston, with which house, in
various positions, he remained during his entire business career.
In 1880 Mr. Wellington was admitted to the firm, and in 1901, when
the name was changed to Wellington, Sears & Co., he became senior mem-
ber. (See sketch of Wellington, Sears, & Co., Ibid.) This commission
house serves as distributors for some seventeen mills located in the north
and south, and in many of these companies Mr. Wellington has become
financially interested. He is the president of the Lanett Cotton Mills and
the Lanett Bleachery & Dye Works, and a director of the West Point
Manufacturing Company, Lanett Cotton Mills, Riverdale Cotton Mills,
Brookside Mills, Boott Mills, Suncook Mills, Gluck Mills, Warwick Mills,
Lanett Bleachery & Dye Works, Sherman Mfg. Co., Dixie Cotton Mills
and the Columbus Mfg. Co.
Mr. Wellington is connected with several financial institutions, being
a director of the National Shawmut Bank, the Boston Safe Deposit &
Trust Company, the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, all
of Boston, and also served on the Suffolk County Court House Commis-
sion. He is a member of the Algonquin, Exchange and Athletic Clubs.
Mr. Wellington married, Oct. 20, 1875, Florena, daughter of John
G. Gray and Jane A. (Living) Gray, of Roxbury, and had three children:
Stanwood G., who, in 1908, joined his father in the firm of Wellington,
Sears & Co., Raynor G. and Anna F.
/^:^^>f^^^
JAMES HMMB
OF THE UNITED STATES 345
ELEAZAR BOYNTON.
Eleazar Boynton was born in Rockport, Essex County, j\Iass., Sept.
29, 1824. He was a son of Eleazar and Sally (Blatchford) Boynton. He
was educated at public and private schools in his native village and at
Phillips Academy, Andover. In 1845, being then just of age, he removed to
Boston and entered the business house of Boynton & Miller, wholesale
grocers and ships chandlers, of which Nehemiah Boynton was the senior
partner, and in 1849 was made a member of the firm. Later, he entered
into partnership with A. F. Hervey, and the firm became Boynton & Hervey ;
in 1855, the two firms consolidated under the name of N. Boynton & Co.
In 1868, on the death of the Hon. Nehemiah Boynton, Eleazar Boynton
became the senior member of the firm, the name remaining as of old, N.
Boynton & Co., until 1901, when it was changed to Wellington, Sears & Co.
Mr. Boynton removed to the historic town of Mcdford, in 1856, and
resided there up to the time of his death. He was vice-president and
trustee of the Medford Savings Bank, a director of the Blackstone National
Bank of Boston, president of the United States Cotton Duck Dealers'
Association, and president of the Russell Mills of Plymouth, Mass.
Mr. Boynton took a leading part in public affairs, and was active in
benevolent and religious circles. He was a member of the Boston School
Committee when he lived in that city, and an active member of the same
committee in Medford when he resided there. He was a member of the
board of selectmen in 1861, when the War of the Rebellion commenced,
and chairman of the board in 1862. To him is largely due the credit
Medford has enjoyed as one of the most loyal communities in that most
critical time in the nation's history. He represented the town in the House
of Representatives, in 1865, and the First Middlesex District in the Senate,
in 1885-86. His sympathies were with the Congregational Church, which
for generations had been the church of his family, and for more than
forty years he was a member of the Mystic Congregational Church, in
Medford.
Mr. Boynton married, October 9, 1852, Mary, daughter of Simeon
and Sally (Plummer) Chadburne. He had four children: Mary Dodge;
Edward P., who followed his father as a member of the firm of Wellington,
Sears & Co. ; Nehemiah, who is now minister of the Congregational Church,
Brooklyn, N. Y., and Elizabeth L. Boynton.
The subject of this sketch died at Medford, Mass., June 6, 1901.
346 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
THEODORE WILBUR BENNETT.
Theodore Wilbur Bennett was born in Charlestown, Mass., Sept.
9, 1844; son of Jonas and Celinea Gardner (Grover) Bennett; grandson
of Stephen and Lucy (Winn) Bennett and of Simeon and Celinea (Gard-
ner) Grover, and a descendant of Thomas Grover. who came from Eng-
land to Charlestown, Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1642 ; through Thomas
and Sarah (Chadwick) Grover; Andrew and Mary Grover, and James and
Sarah (Austin) Grover. Jonas Bennett was a banker, and Theodore W.
Bennett was educated at Nathaniel Allen's school in West Newton and at
the Boston Latin School. He left the Latin School before completing the
Boston Latin School. He left the Latin School before completing the
course, in order to accept a position with the house of N. Boynton &
Co., commission merchants, who made a specialty of representing mills
that produced cotton duck. He remained with the firm up to 1868, when he
resigned, to engage in business on his own account as agent for several
New England and Baltimore cotton mills in London, England, where
he remained up to 1869, when he returned to Boston to accept a partner-
ship in the firm of N. Boynton & Co., the vacancy being caused by the
death of the senior member of that firm, and this business relation was
maintained imtil his death, e.xcept during an interval of three years, i88g-
91, when he was a partner in the firm of John L. Bremer & Co. He was
an early advocate of the manufacture of cotton fabrics in the cotton
States, building the mills near the cotton fields and opening a new industry
in that section. As early as 1887 this desired experiment was tried by the
firm of N. Boynton & Co., who were instrumental in the erection of a
cotton mill at Langdale, Ala., near West Point, Ga., which was incor-
porated 1887 as the West Point Manufacturing Company, expressly for
producing cotton ducks in various widths and weights, and this mill
grew to 25,000 spindles and 500 looms. In 1894 the firm, largely through
Mr. Bennett's influence, established at Lanett, Ala., near West Point, the
Lanett Cotton Mills, incorporated in 1893 with a capital of $1,000,000.
The "Lanett" was made up from the first syllable of the name of the
president of the mill, L. Lanier, and the last syllable of the name of Bennett.
The firm of N. Boynton & Co. became Wellington, Sears & Co., with offices
both in Boston and New York.
Mr. Bennett was a foremost factor in promoting the cotton industry
in the South, and it has been well said of him that "his friends were
numberless and his enemies none."
In September, 1869, Mr. Bennett married Anna Brown, daughter of
Edward and Sophia (Whitney) Mellen, of Wayland, Mass., and they
had eight children. Mr. Bennett died at his home in Wayland, Mass.,
June 29, 1899.
^
OF THE UNITED STATES 347
GEORGE F. FABYAN.
George F. Fabyan was born in Somersworth, N. H., June 26, 1837.
He was the only son of Dr. George and Abigail (Cutts) Fabyan, the
latter coming from York, Me.
About a year after the birth of his son. Dr. Fabyan's health began
to fail, and on this account the family, in 1838, removed to Gorham,
Me., where the early life of the subject of this sketch w;as spent. Com-
pleting the educational course afforded by Gorham Academy, he entered
Phillips Academy, at Andover, where he studied for three years. On
leaving this latter school, it was a keen disappointment to Dr. Fabyan
that, owing to lack of resources on account of his own ill health, his
son could not enter college and follow him in the medical profession.
Consequently, when but a boy of seventeen years, George F. Fabyan
left home and came direct to Boston, where, after a long search for
employment, he entered, as errand boy, the services of George W. Chip-
man ( later Deacon Chipman, of Tremont Temple) who at that time was
conducting a dry goods establishment at the corner of Hanover and
Blackstone Streets. Being bright and quick to perceive, young Fabyan
soon noticed that the business of Boston centred in what is now the down-
town district, and, watching his opportunity, at the end of a year's time
he left the employ of Mr. Chipman and obtained employment with James
M. Beebe & Co., a wholesale dry goods house on Kilby Street, with which
concern he remained for twelve years. During this latter period, Mr.
Fabyan had become so proficient in and acquired such a knowledge of
the ramifications of the business that when, after the war, James M.
Beebe & Co. discontinued, he was able to form a connection as buyer
of New England cottons with A. T. Stewart & Co., New York mer-
chants, and immediately opened an office at 140 Devonshire Street, Boston.
While working for the interest of this concern he endeavored also to
further his own by increasing his acquaintance with the textile trade.
The firm of J. S. & E. Wright, cotton commission merchants, occupied
offices in the same building, and they were much interested and held Mr.
Fabyan in highest favor. On resigning from the position of buyer for
the firm of A. T. Stewart & Co., therefore, Mr. Fabyan, at the earnest
solicitation of the Wrights (who were elderly gentlemen and about to
retire from business) entered their employ with the prospect of becoming
a member of the firm. In the early seventies the style of Wright, Bliss
& Fabyan was formed, and a little later the Wrights died, after
which the firm name was changed to Bliss, Fabyan & Co.
Under the new management, the concern made an enormous and
steady increase, until, in 191 1, it was the largest of its kind in the coun-
try, having branch offices in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago,
the volume of its business per annum being ten times greater than that of
348 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
the original house, and handhng the output of the great mills of Lewiston,
Biddeford and Fall River, in addition to that of many smaller plants.
When the great firm of F. Skinner & Co. failed, Bliss, Fabyan & Co.
removed to their stand at the corner of Devonshire and Franklin Streets,
succeeding to a large part of the business. At this location they remained
until 1872, when, in the great Boston fire, they were burned out. After
a lapse of about a year (during which time the firm was located in a
small annex attached to Music Hall) Bliss, Fabyan & Co., on the com-
pletion of the building at the corner of Summer and Devonshire Streets,
which was built expressly for them, removed to the same, the firm re-
maining an old-fashioned partnership.
In addition to its regular business, that of the distribution of cotton,
the company had very large investments in mill properties, Mr. Fabyan
being treasurer of the Androscoggin Mills, of Lewiston, Me., and several
other corporations. Mr. Fabyan was also treasurer and a director of the
Otis Company, the Boston Duck Company and the Columbian Manufac-
turing Company, and was at one time a director of the Lewiston Bleachery,
Thorndike Company, Cordis Mills, Pepperell Manufacturing Company,
Old Colony Trust Company and the Metropolitan Warehouse Company.
Mr. Fabyan was one of the two Massachusetts members of the Jekyl
Island Club, that exclusive coterie which forms a colony of its own on
an island oflf the coast of Georgia; he was a member of the Metropolitan
Club, of New York; an officer at one time of the Eastern Yacht Club,
and a member of the Art, LTnion and Country Clubs of Boston.
In 1864 Mr. Fabyan married Isabella Littlefield, of Roxbury, Mass.,
five children being born to them, three sons and two daughters : George,
who is at the head of the Chicago office of the house; Francis W., a
member of the firm attached to the Boston headquarters; Marshall, who
followed the profession of his grandfather (the grandfather later in life
regained his health and followed his son to Boston, where he became
a prominent practitioner with offices on Bowdoin Street), and, being a grad-
uate of the Harvard Medical School, served at the Massachusetts General
Hospital and as professor at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md. ;
Gertrude, now Mrs. Isaac R. Thomas, and Isabella, at home with her mother.
Mr. Fabvan, after an illness of several months, died at his home in
Brookline, Jan. 18, 1907. /
OF THE UNITED STATES 349
ORLANDO U. ALFORD.
Orlando Hiram Alford, son of Samuel and Mary (Slayton) Alford,
was born in Perkinsville, Vermont, Sept. 18, 1840. He was educated in
the Springfield and Woodstock Seminaries, \'ermont, and in 1856 came
to Boston and associated himself with the firm of Edwards, Nichols &
Richards, in the dry goods business. This partnership later dissolved and
was succeeded by Morse, Shepard 8z Co., in which concern Mr. Alford
became a partner. In 1877 he engaged in the commission business, being
employed by Wright, Bliss & Fabyan, of Boston. Within two years he
was admitted to this partnership, the style of which, in 1881, was changed
to Bliss, Fabyan & Co.
Mr. Alford also served the Bates Manufacturing Company as presi-
dent and director ; the Androscoggin ]\lills, the Boston Duck Company
and the Otis Company as treasurer and director ; the Columbian Manu-
facturing Company, Cordis Mills, Thorndike Company, Lewiston Bleach-
ery. First National Bank and City Trust Company as director; the Franklin
Savings Bank as trustee; the Merrimac River Towing Company as presi-
dent, and the Union Water Company as president, treasurer and director.
On Jan. 24, 1865, Mr. Alford married Ellen J., daughter of James
P. and Lucinda (Boynton) Balch, of Weathersfield, Vt., and had two chil-
dren, Martha A. and Edward B. Mr. Alford died June 12, 1908.
JOHN D. W. JOY.
John Dolbeare Waters Joy was born in Boston, Mass., April 6, 1828.
He was the son of John Randall and Nancy (Dolbeare) Joy, grandson
of Thomas and Polly (Day") Joy and a direct descendant of Thomas and
Joan (Gallop) Joy, who came from England to Boston about 1635. Thomas
Joy was a builder, house carpenter and millwright, and built the first
town house in Boston, which was completed in the year 1658 on the
site now occupied by the old State House. The father of John D. W.
Joy was a calico printer. The subject of this sketch attended the Eliot
School, in North Bennett Street, Boston, and at an early age left to
enter business. He soon found employment with Mason, Lawrence &
Co., drv goods commission merchants, where his character and ability
gained him admission as a partner, the firm being then known as Law-
rence & Co. In 1866 he left this house to become an active member
of the firm of Frothingham & Co., and on January i, 1873, shortly after
the death of Mr. Frothingham, he established the firm of Joy, Langdon
& Co., having offices in Boston and New York, of which he continued
350 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
to be an active member up to the time of his death. For nearly fifty
years he held a prominent place in the dry goods commission business,
and had the closest connection, as selling agent, stockholder, director and
president, with many of the largest mills in New England.
During the latter part of his business career he was very closely
identified with the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, of Lowell, Mass. ;
the Newmarket Manufacturing Company, of Newmarket, N. H., and the
Hamilton Woolen Company, of Southbridge and Amesbury, Mass., and
was for a number of years one of the directors of the two latter com-
panies. He was a director of the New England National Bank, and one
of the Board of Managers of the Suffolk Savings Bank for nearly forty
years. Although he was eminently a business man and always gave his
business his active and close attention, even up to a few hours of his death,
yet he was a man of broad views, and his fine physique enabled him
to do a large work in many other fields. When quite a young man, he
belonged to the Howard Benevolent Society, and was assigned to the
personal charge of the "North End" district. It was in this society
that he organized a relief for the needy, upon substantially the present
plans of the Associated Charities of the present day. He was one of the
first and most active trustees of the Home for Aged Men in Boston, of
which he was for many years vice-president.
Mr. Joy was deeply interested in and served on the committee
which raised funds for the equestrian statue of Washington in the Public
Garden. He never entered into active political life, although he was a
lifelong Republican, and served, by request, as a member of the Finance
Commission appointed by ex-Ma3or Curtis, in 1896. He was president
of the Bethany Home for Young Women at the time of his death, and
was one of the prime movers in establishing this home. He realized, to
the fullest extetit, the value of the highest education, and gave unstintingly
of his time and means to Dean Academy and Tufts College. He was
treasurer of the former for many years, and it was mainly through his
efforts that the academy was rebuilt promptly after a disastrous fire. In
1880 he was elected one of the Board of Trustees of Tufts College, and
.served as a member of the Executive Board and as chairman of the
Finance Committee. He held the nftice of president of the Board of
Trustees for over ten years. He was brought up in the Universalist Church,
and the Universalist Sabbath School Union was presided over by him for
many years. The Massachusetts General Convention of that body owes
much of its present financial condition to his thirty-five years as president.
The Universalist General Convention fthe national organization) elected
him its president for many successive years, and he afterward served as
chairman of its Board of Trustees. As treasurer of the Universalist
Publishing House for thirty years, he had the satisfaction of seeing that
institution firmly establi.shed. He was "father of the Universalist Club,"
J.'IMBSH.I^tMB CO
OF THE UNITED STATES 351
I
rarely missing one of its meetings. He always lived in Boston, and during
the last twenty-six years of his life he resided at No. 364 Boylston Street.
His widow, a son, Franklin Lawrence, and a daughter, Mrs. Arthur
E. Mason, survived him. Mr. Joy died in Boston, Oct. 4, 1898.
EDGAR HARDING.
Edgar Harding was born in Millville, Massachusetts, Dec. 5, 1844,
son of Charles Lewis and Julia Ann (Bowen) Harding, and a de-
scendant of the first settler of the name, Abraham Harding, a leather
dresser and glover by trade, who was born in England about 1615 and came
to Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first record of his name appearing on
the register of the town of Dedham, Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638.
Early in 1639 he married Elizabeth Harding, who came from England to
Boston in 1635, being then thirteen years of age.
In 1642 Abraham Harding removed to Braintree. There he united
with the church, took the freeman's oath, and by purchase became possessed
of a town-right, house, barn and fifty-three acres. In 1650, when Medfield
as well as Medway was granted to "Dedham Men," he became one of the
grantees, doubtless because of his early proprietorship in Dedham, and
he immediately removed to Medfield, where he built what was a costly
house for that period. He died suddenly, March 22, 1655, leaving his
widow with four children. This Elizabeth Harding appears to have been a
"superior and devoted" woman, and to have left a lasting influence upon
her descendants. In 1656 she married John Frary and had two daughters.
Mr. Frary died April, 1670, and, in 1673, she married Captain Thomas
Dyer, a wealthy cloth worker of Weymouth. His son Abraham was a
man of character and consideration, and was chosen a member of the
town committee Nov. 23, 1713, when- Medfield held its first town meeting;
selectman in 1715-16; moderator in 1617, and was appointed to lay out
land for the first minister. His son Samuel married Mary Cutler and his
son Elisha was highly considered and was chosen by his townsmen of
Franklin, Mass., one of a committee to protest against the acts of the
United States Government in the War of 1812. According to tradition,
his wffe, Ruth Hewins, was a very superior woman. His son, Hon. Lewis,
was' chosen to many important town offices, and acted as town clerk from
1815 to 1823. In 1824 he bought a farm at Stony Brook North Wrentham
and lived there until 1855. In 1848 he represented Norfolk County in the
Massachusetts Senate. He married Irene, daughter of Fisher H. Harts-
home, of Walpole, and (second), Polly Merrifield, who survived him.
352 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
His son, Charles Lewis, was the treasurer of the Lowell Carpet Company,
and married Julia A., daughter of Comon and Elizabeth (Aldrich) Bowen,
of Scituate, R. L
The subject of this sketch spent his early life in Burlington, Vt., and
Cambridge, Mass., and received his education at Worcester Academy and
Chauncey Hall School, Boston. He entered his father's dry goods com-
mission house, and Jan. i, 1875, became a partner, the style then being
Harding, Colby & Co., and so continued when the firm became Harding,
Whitman & Co., December, 1887, and was senior member of the concern
after the death of his father in 1891. He was treasurer for many years
of the Merchants' Woolen Mills, at Dedham, Mass. ; president and director
of the Whitman Mills in New Bedford. He also succeeded his father as
director of the North National Bank, was a director of the Rutland R. R.,
and selling agent during the copartnership of Harding, Colby & Co., of
the Merchants' Woolen Co., Scofield Manufactory, Thorn Dolan & Co.,
Philadelphia; Washington Mills, Lawrence; Sprague Print Works, and of
the Salisbury Mills. Under the copartnership of Harding, Whitman &
Co., he was agent of the Arlington Mills, Whitman Mills, Manomet Mills,
Eddystone Print Works, and of the Southern Cotton Yarn Mills.
Mr. Harding was a Republican in politics. He belonged to the Al-
gonquin, LTnion and other social clubs. He was an enthusiastic yachtsman
and a member of the Eastern, Beverly and other yacht clubs. He main-
tained a summer residence at Woods' Hole and a home in Beacon Street,
Boston. He married, Nov. 8, 1871, Sara Marston, daughter of Josiah
and Mary Ann (Dyer) Robinson, of Boston, and their children were: Ruth,
Charles L., Josiah Robinson, Edgar, Jr., Priscilla, and Marston Harding.
Mr. Harding died in Boston, Oct. 28, 1905.
ISAAC PARKER.
Isaac Parker was born at Jaffrey, Cheshire County, N. H., April 14,
1788, the son of Abel and Edith (Jewett) Parker. Mrs. Parker was the
daughter of Jedediah Jewett. of Pepperill, Mass., and Isaac's father was
a descendant of Abraham Parker, one of the original settlers of Chelms-
ford, Mass. The only school attended by the subject of this sketch was
the district school of his native town, but his learning extended far
beyond this limit, for he inherited a natural taste for reading, and was
not slow to take advantage of his father's library, composed of a collection
of books of unusual variety in that region. But neither was his education
one of books alone, for labor filled the intervals of school terms, the duties
OF THE UNITED STATES 353
of the farm in the milder seasons and the household manufactures in
the winter months commanding large portions of his time. Instead of
going, as did his brothers, to college, Isaac very early determined on a
mercantile career, and January 31, 1803, or while still in his fifteenth year,
he entered the employ of David Page and Luke Wheelock, merchants, who
had established a good miscellaneous business in Jaffrey and later engaged
in the manufacture of potash at Jaffrey, flour at Otter Creek, and some
textile fabrics at Middlebury, Vermont, their establishment at the latter
place having been the first cotton factory in the State. On the 29th of
August, 1806, Mr. Parker removed to Middlebury, Vermont, which place was
subsequently made the headquarters of the concern, and affairs were con-
ducted under his supervision. Reaching his majority in 1809, however,
Mr. Parker decided to seek his fortune "in the western wilds," which was
probably no farther west than Buffalo, N. Y., but just at that time Samuel
Smith, of Peterborough, N. H., offered to establish the young man in a
business which he was about to open up at Keene, N. H., and Mr. Parker,
accepted the offer and later became a partner. In 181 1, the style was
changed to Parker & Hough, Dr. Plough, of Keene, becoming Mr. Parker's
active associate. The firm occupied a three-story building, the lower story
being used for the usual purposes of a country store when much of the busi-
ness was done by barter, and the upper portion of the building was conducted
as a factory for the manufacture of satinets.
During the War of 1812, Mr. Parker participated in the defence
of his country; accordingly we find him connected with the Keene Light
Infantry — an independent company of which he was commissioned captain,
June 7, 1813. At the close of hostilities he went to Boston, Mass., and
became a partner of Silas Bullard under the style of Bullard & Parker, at
31 Central street, but he soon withdrew and in 1820 established with Jonas
M. Melville the firm of Isaac Parker & Co. for the sale of American
manufactured goods, this being the nucleus of the well-known commission
house of Parker, Wilder & Co., Mr. Parker being connected with the
business until his death.
Mr. Parker was also publicly identified in politics. He was a member
of the Common Council of Boston, in 1824-25-26-32-38-39-40, serving on
the standing committee of finance and for two years as chairman of his
bianch of the joint committee on the introduction of water. He likewise
served for three years as a representative from Boston in the House of
Representatives of 1830-31, 1831-32, and 1842. He was a director in a
large number of business corporations, one of the original trustees of the
Mount Auburn Cemetery, a trustee under the mortgage of the Sullivan
R. R. in New Hampshire, and for sixteen years president of the Traders'
Bank of Boston. He was also a resident member of the New England
Historic Genealogical Society.
November 17, 1812, Mr. Parker married Sarah, daughter of Rev.
354 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Laban and Mary (Minot) Ainsworth. and had issue, four sons and four
daughters.
An accident, by which he was thrown from his carriage, resulted "in
Mr. Parker's death, at Boston, May 27, 1858.
MARSHALL PINCKNEY WILDER.
Marshall Pinckney Wilder was born at Rindge, N. H., September
22, 1798. He was the son of Samuel Locke and Anna (Sherwin) Wilder,
and descended through Ephraim and Lucretia (Locke) Wilder; Ephraim
and Anna Wilder ; Ephraim and Elizabeth Stevens Wilder ; Nathaniel
and Mary (Sawyer) Wilder; from Thomas and Anna Wilder. This
Thomas, the first settler, came from Berks County in England to
Charlestown, Mass., with his mother, Martha Wilder, a widow, and settled
in Charlestown, Mass., in 1640, where he married during the same year.
His father was the nephew of Samuel Locke, D. D., president of Harvard,
and was himself a representative in the Legislature of New Hampshire
for thirteen years and held many important public offices in the town of
Rindge. His mother was the daughter of Jonathan .Sherwin, of Rindge,
N. H. His grandfather, Captain Ephraim Wilder, was a representative
of the town of Sterling, and in this capacity, in 1788, voted for the adoption
of the Constitution of the United States; his great-grandfather, Ephraim,
and his great-great-grandfather, Nathaniel, rendered meritorious service
in the Indian wars, Nathaniel being killed by the Indians at Lancaster,
July, 1704.
The subject of this sketch entered the common school of his native
place at the age of four, and at twelve began his course at the new Ipswich
Academy. At the age of sixteen he determined to follow the occupation
of farming and began to work upon his father's lands ; but the increase
of his father's business took him into the latter's store, and at the age of
twenty-one he was taken into partnership. At the same time he was ap-
pointed postmaster of the town. But the country town did not suffice his
energies, and in 1825 he removed to Boston and became a member of the
firm of Wilder & Payson, West India Traders, in Union street; later the
firm became Wilder & Smith, doing business in North Market Street, and
still later he followed the same business under his own name at No. 3 Central
Wharf.
In 1837, with Isaac Parker and Abraham W. Blanchard, he established
the firm of Parker, Blanchard & Wilder, for the sale of domestic goods
on commission. A few years later William A. Parker succeeded Mr.
Blanchard, and the firm became Parker, Wilder & Parker; other members
OF THE UNITED STATES 355
of the firm later on were Ezra Farnsworth, Francis J. Parker, Samuel B.
Rindge, John Byers, William H. Wilder, Benjamin Phipps, William H.
Sherman, James Street and Marshall Shepard, and the firm style became
Parker, Wilder & Co., which was first located in Water street, then in
Pearl street, then Winthrop Square, where its offices were destroyed in
the Boston fire of 1872. Mr. Wilder was a member of this firm almost
up to the time of his death. He was also a director in many commercial
and financial companies and institutions, and yet found time to take an
active part in public and political life. He was a member of the State
Legislature in 1839; a member of the Governor's Council in 1849: presi-
dent of the State Senate in 1850 and one of the founders of the Constitu-
tional Union party in i860. Throughout the war he was a firm adherent
of the United States Government.
Soon after his arrival in Boston, Mr. Wilder purchased Governor
Increase Sumner's house and grounds in Dorchester, and there made his
home, devoting all his leisure time to horticulture, agriculture and pomology,
for which he had the taste from boyhood.
He was one of the instigators and promoters of the Massachusetts
Horticultural Society, and in 1840 was chosen its president, holding that
office until 1848, when he resigned.
He instigated in 1848 the organization of the American Pomological
Society, and was elected its president, an office which he filled for many
years. He assisted in the organization of the Norfolk Agricultural Society
in 1849, and was its president for twenty years. To his efiforts were largely
due, also, the inception and growth of the following institutions : The
Massachusetts Central Board of Agriculture, of which he was president
until the Board of Agriculture became a department of the State Govern-
ment; the Massachusetts School of Agriculture in 1858, of which he was
elected president; Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1863, of which
he was first trustee ; United States Agricultural Society in 1852, of which
he was president for six years. He was a member of many horticultural
and agricultural societies both at home and abroad, notably the Royal
Horticultural Society of London; Royal Horticultural Society of Paris;
Horticultural Society of Frankfort-on-the-Main and the Societe Van Noons,
of Belgium, of which he was commissioner for America. He was an
honorary member of the Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of
Agriculture.
He was one of the United States Commissioners to the L'niversal
Exposition, at Paris, where he was appointed chairman of the Committee on
Horticulture and the Cultivation and Products of the Vine. Horticultural
Hall is adorned with an admirable marble bust of Mr. Wilder, presented
to the Society in 1863 by Charles O. Whitmore, Esq.
In 1859 Mr. Wilder presided at the first public meeting held in
Boston in relation to the collocation of certain institutions on the Back
3s6 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Bay lands where the handsome building of the Boston Society of Natural
History and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology now stand. Of
the latter institution he was vice-president and later chairman of its
Society of Arts. In i860 he was one of the special committee appointed to
receive the Prince of Wales at the banquet given in his honor.
This singularly versatile man added to his other tastes military pro-
clivities. He was enrolled in the New Hampshire militia at sixteen and
was commissioned as an adjutant at twenty-one. He organized and
equipped the Rindge Light Infantry and was chosen its captain. At
twenty-five he was elected lieutenant-colonel, and at twenty-six was com-
missioned as colonel of the 12th regiment. Soon after his removal to
Boston he joined the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, and in
1857 became its commander. He was a Freemason and received all of
the degrees, including the thirty-third, and was Deputy Grand Master of
the Boston Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and a delegate from that body
to the World's Convention of Masons in Paris, A. D., 1867.
In January, 1868, Mr. Wilder became president of the New England
Historic-Genealogical Society, an office which he filled until 1886, and to
his efiforts were mainly due the building of its handsome edifice on Somerset
Street.
He was an able and eloquent speaker and a prolific writer upon the
subjects in which he was mainly interested. The list of his writings is
too long to be here inserted entire, as they would have made many volumes
had they been collated.
Among his published addresses were : On Laying the Corner Stone
of the First Massachusetts Horticultural Hall, Boston (1844); on the
225th Anniversary of the Settlement of Dorchester (1855); annual ad-
dresses before the Historic Genealogical Society (1868-73); Lectures on
California (1871); and "The Hybridization of Plants" (i'872); "On the
Progress and Influence of Rural Art" (1872); addresses before the
American Pomological Society (1848-73); and the United States Agri-
cultural Society (1852-6); Dartmouth conferred upon him the degree of
Ph. D. in 1877, and Roanoke that of LL. D. in 1884.
Mr. Wilder married, in 1820, Tryphosa, daughter of Dr. Stephen
Jewett, of Rindge, who died in 1831, leaving four children. He married
(second) August 29, 1833, Abigail, daughter of Captain David Baker, of
Franklin, Mass., who died in 1854, leaving five children ; and married (third)
September '8, 1855, Julia. Baker, sister of his second wife, by whom he had
two sons, Edward Baker and Marshall Pinckney Wilder.
He died Dec. 16, 1886, at his residence in Dorchester, aged eighty-
eight years.
^OF THE UNITED STATES 357
EZRA FARNSWORTH.
Ezra Farnsworth was born January 5, 1813, at Groton, Mass. He
was the second son of Abel and Polly (Goodell) Farnsworth; grandson of
Ezra, Jr., and Betsey (Sheple) Farnsworth; great-grandson of Ezra and
Abigail (Pierce) ; great-great-grandson of Benjamin and Mary (Prescott)
Farnsworth, and so a direct descendant in the sixth generation from
Matthias Farnsworth, or Farnworth, as the name was first written, who
first appears at Lynn, Mass., where he was a resident in 1657 ; later he
moved to Groton, where he is first mentioned in the records, November
27, 1664; he married Mary Farr, the daughter of George Farr, of Lynn,
a shipwright who was sent to Salem in 1629 by the Company in London.
Ezra Farnsworth, the subject of this sketch, was educated at the
common schools in Groton and in the Groton Academy. At the age of
fifteen he became a clerk in a store in Groton, and two years later wended
his way to Boston, where he obtained a similar situation with the firm of
Gordon & Stoddard, a dry goods importing house ; he evinced his capacity
for business in a marked manner, and in 1835, being then twenty-two
years of age, he was despatched to Europe in the capacity of purchasing
agent for the firm, remaining for two years in that employment,
and during the two years subsequent to his return to the United States
was with the same house. He then entered into partnership under the
firm name of Farnsworth & Shaw, dealers in dry goods, and continued
the business up to 1850, when he entered the commission house of Parker,
Wilder & Co., in which he became the senior partner and was connected
with the firm up to the time of his death. He was associated with the
Boston Board of Trade from its inception in 1854, and became its vice-
president in 1873. He was a director of the Boston National Bank from
1856, and was a member of the municipal government in the same year.
From 1865-72 he was a trustee of the Massachusetts General Hospital.
He was afiiliated with the Congregational Church under the pastorate
of Rev. Lyman Beecher, and later was a member of the Park Street Church,
of which he was a deacon from 1853-4 up to his death. He was associated
for many years with the Board of City Missions and served as its president
from 1848 to 1850. In 1868 he was chosen a member of the Prudential
Committee of the American Board of Foreign Missions, and also chairman
of its Finance Committee. He was chairman of the building committee for
the Congregational House in Beacon Street. He was interested in Bradford
Academy and gave liberally to that and other institutions of learning. In
1840 he married Sarah Melville, daughter of Isaac Parker, senior partner
of Parker, Wilder & Co., and had eight children: Mary Rice, married
John Lewis Bremer; Ezra; Alice; Isaac Parker, died in 1864; Sarah,
married James Frothingham Hunnewell ; James E., died in 1854; William,
who was a member of Farnsworth, Thayer & Co., in 1910, graduated from
3S8 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Harvard in 1877 and married Lucy Holman Burgess; Helen, married James
Means.
Mr. Ezra Farnsworth died at his residence, 23 Commonwealth Avenue,
Boston, Mass., July 4, 1890, aged seventy-seven years.
JOHN HOPEWELL.
John Hopewell was born in Greenfield, Franklin County, Mass.,
February 2, 1845. His father, also John Hopewell, was a native of
London, England, and came to the United States when he was but fourte"en
years of age. He decided to learn the cutler's trade, and after serving
as apprentice for the full term of seven years, he became a manufacturer of
cutlery. In 1843 he married Catharine Mahoney, of Greenfield, Mass.,
and had six sons, of whom the subject of this sketch was the eldest. John,
Jr., after his twelfth year, worked in the cutlery shop six months of the
year and attended school the other six months. At the age of fourteen, he
left school entirely and devoted his whole time to work. For three years,
he was employed by Lamson & Goodnow, table cutlery manufacturers in
Shelbourne Falls, Mass., and then went to Springfield, Mass., in 1861 where
he secured a position in the machine shops of the United States Arsenal.
It was while he was in Shelbourne Falls that Mr. Hopewell, then a
lad of fifteen, chanced to read the "Life of Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks," who
was governor and representative from Massachusetts in the United States
Congress and Speaker of the House. The success of the "Bobbin Boy"
achieved under circumstances similar to his, and with no greater advantages
than those which he enjoyed, presented to young Hopewell's mind the idea
of an honored and respected citizen, and convinced him there were other
and higher objects in life than a man's daily wage. Determining to fit
himself for a greater career, he devoted himself assiduously to the reading
of books upon history, travel, political economy and especially the biogra-
phies of great men.
When he went to Springfield, he continued to make good use of his
leisure hours. He attended night school, and being a ready speaker, a
trait which he had inherited from both parents, he joined a debating society.
By the time he was twenty-two years of age, he became convinced that he
could find something to do which would be more in accord with his
tastes than working at the bench. He announced his decision to his parents,
and one day walked out of the shops at noon and went forth like Abraham
of old, not knowing whither he was going. He spent a portion of the
following year at a business college in Springfield, where he came in
contact with a different class of men, all intent upon a business career.
<l^CC^
OF THE UNITED STATES 355
From the business college he went to Albany, where he obtained a position
as selling agent for a publishing house. Misfortune, however, overwhelmed
his employers, and he in consequence returned to Springfield, and secured
a position with Josiah Cummings, a manufacturer of saddlery and a jobber
of blankets and robes manufactured by L. C. Chase & Co., of Boston, with
which firm, three years later, Mr. Hopewell associated himself as salesman.
The business grew rapidly, and in a few years he was admitted to the
partnership of L. C. Chase & Co. and became the head of the house in 1887.
January 31, 1885, he became treasurer of the Sanford Mills, a large manu-
facturing enterprise resulting from the business alliance of L. C. Chase &
Co. and Thomas Goodall, of Sanford, Maine, manufacturers of mohair
plush robes and blankets, and he continued to hold that office until Aug. 22,
1896, when he was succeeded by his brother, Frank.
Mr. Hopewell was a man of multifarious interests and held many posi-
tions of responsibility and trust, being president of the Reading Rubber Mfg.
Co., of Reading, Mass., president of the Electric Goods Mfg. Co., a large
electrical manufacturing corporation of Boston and Canton, Mass., director
of the National Bank of Redemption and First National Bank, and served
as director and officer of many other industrial corporations. He was
always interested in political questions, especially on subjects pertaining
to the manufacturing interests of New England. He was one of the
organizers of the Home Market Club of Boston, and was a member of the
Executive Committee or a director ever since its organization, and was a
director of the Bos'ton Merchants' Association. He represented his district
in the General Court of Massachusetts in 1892; declined to be a candidate
for the Republican nomination as Representative to the 53d Congress,
was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, which met in
St. Louis in 1896, which nominated McKinley. Mr. Hopewell travelled
extensively in this country and in Europe. He was a member of the Home
Market Club, the Cambridge Club and the Cambridge Republican Club, of
both of which he was president, the Algonquin Club of Boston, the Boston
Art Club, the Boston Athletic Association and the Colonial Club. He was
also president of the Cambridge Citizens' Trade Association. He was a
Universalist.
In October, 1870, Mr. Hopewell married Sarah, daughter of Charles
and (Blake) Blake, and had five children, Charles F., Frank B.,
Mabel G., Nulla H. and Henry Chase. The life of Mr. Hopewell is
typical of that of thousands of young men, who, without influence or
friends to push them forward, have made a place for themselves and won
recognition in the business world ; not through any special talent or genius,
but by painstaking, persistent, hard work, never counting the hours, whether
working for themselves or their employers.
36o TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
WILLIAM WHITMAN.
William Whitman was born at Round Hill, Annapolis County, Nova
Scotia, May 9, 1842. His father, John Whitman, was the great-grandson
of John Whitman, who was born in Massachusetts ; the great-grandson of
John Whitman, who came from England prior to 1638 and settled in
Weymouth, Massachusetts Bay Colony. John Whitman, great-great-grand-
father to William Whitman, left Massachusetts with the large body of
Loyalists who were distributed by the action of the Revolutionists and
took possession of the fruitful fields of Acadia. He settled on a farm near
Annapolis known as Round Hill, and the estate is still in possession of
the Whitman family. John Whitman (father of the subject of this sketch)
married Rebecca Cutler, a direct descendant of Ebenezer Cutler, a conspicu-
ous Loyalist when attachment to the cause of the King of England made
him a refugee in the stormy times of the American Revolution, and he
settled in Halifax. Nova Scotia, in 1778. William Whitman was a child
of this marriage, and spent his early years at his home in Halifax, and in
the neighboring town of Annapolis, where he attended a small country
school and the Annapolis Academy. His school days were ended when he
was eleven years old, circumstances compelling him to make his further
way in the world unassisted by parents or friends. In his case the
absence of wealth and the deprivation of careful home shielding was no
bar to success, and coming as he did into the active period of life with an
inheritance of physical strength derived from families conspicuous for
longevity and good health, he was well equipped for the battle before him.
He had acquired a good, legible handwriting which he found always a good
recommendation to business men, and as he had derived from his early
training and from his honest-dealing. God-fearing ancestors, principles
of business righteousness, he had indispensable requisites for starting out
in a safe road to success. He left his home May 13, 1854, to take a
situation in the office of a wholesale dry goods store in St. John's, New
Brunswick, but the limited opportunities of that city became manifest
before the end of two years' service, and he determined to seek his fortune
in Boston. There, without the aid of friends or influence, he presented
h'mself as an applicant for the position of entry clerk to the proprietors
of the house of James M. Beebe, Richardson & Co., successors to James
M. Beebe, Morgan & Co., well known by the business men of Annapolis,
and whose names were familiar to the boy of fourteen. He attracted the
merchants by his many and positive assertions of capability, and he remained
with the house for eleven years, being successively promoted through the
various grades of clerkship, not leaving until the firm was dissolved in
1867. He then was sought out as treasurer by the Arlington Woolen Mills,
for which the firm of R. M. Bailey & Co. were the selling agents, and of
which Mr. Bailey was president. He held the position for two years, when
M^B-BirE.a. fOLLLiMS SMUaXi^
c /-; I UO' 74
.Z^AS:SIiI.AMB ca
OF THE UNITED STATES 361
he resigned, owing to his dissatisfaction with the management, and pur-
chased an interest in a woolen mill in Ashland, N. H., where he began the
manufacture of woolen goods on his own account. He had been in Ashland
only six months when the Arlington Mills were reorganized, and the new
management urged him to return as treasurer, which he did. His con-
nection with the Arlington Woolen Mills as treasurer extended from
1867 to 1902, a period of thirty-five years, with the exception of the six
months at Ashland, N. H. In 1902 he was elected president of the mills.
He was the chief factor, through his extraordinary energy and foresight,
in the development of one of the largest woolen mills in New England,
if not in the world, from the small beginning made in 1867, with limited
capital and poor equipment and under divided counsel. Under his general
direction, the capitalization grew from $150,000 to $8,000,000, and the
number of employees from 300 to 8,900. The mills, all within one yard,
afiford a floor space of sixty-two acres, the architecture of the mill build-
ings being acknowledged to be the finest in the world. Within the
walls, 1,250,000 pounds of wool can be consumed weekly, equivalent to
the fleeces of 33,000 sheep daily. In addition to the consumption of wool,
the mills in the cotton department of the corporation consume annually
12,000 bales of raw cotton. This recapitulation of work done seems to
be pertinent in any sketch written of Mr. Whitman, as it was his life-work,
and his personality was closely woven in every yard of the product of
the great mills. He was a pioneer in the worsted industry and created
a growth on untouched fields, and, within his memory, the clothing of his
father's family and the community in which they lived was woven on the
hand loom and the yarn from which it was woven was spun on the old-
fashioned spinning-wheel.
From 1895 Mr. Whitman influenced the construction of many new
mills in New England, in which he served as managing director. He
caused the Whitman Mills, for the manufacture of cotton goods, to be
erected in New Bedford in 1893 and 1902, and the Manomet Mills in the
same city in 1903 and 1908. The Whitman Mills, during Mr. Whitman's
incumbency of the presidency, were capitalized at $1,500,000; equipped
with 132,000 spindles and 3,400 looms used in the manufacture of cotton
cloths. The Manomet Mills have $2,000,000 capital, 124,000 spindles and
produce cotton yarns. The plant of the Nonquit Spinning Company, also
in New Bedford, was erected in 1906 and 1910, the corporation having a
capital of $2,400,000 and 130,000 spindles; this company confining its
product to cotton yarns. The Nashawena Mills, of the same city, organized
in 1909 with a capitalization of $2,500,000, with 150,000 spindles and
4,000 looms, for the manufacture of cotton cloths. Mr. Whitman at this
writing (1911) is president of the Manomet Mills, Nonquitt Spinning
Company and the Nashawena Mills, which with the Arlington Mills
represent a combined capital of $14,900,000 and employ over 12,000 opera-
362 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
tives. These mills are models of modern American cotton mills. Mr.
Whitman in 1887 became a partner in the firm of Harding, Colby & Co.,
commission merchants, of Boston and New York, the firm being selling
agents for the Arlington Mills. The firm was dissolved in 1889 by the
death of Mr. Colby, and Mr. Whitman became managing partner of the
firm of Harding, Whitman & Co., its successor, and the business of the
firm kept pace with the growth of the Arlington Mills and branch offices
were established in the leading cities of the country.
On June 30, 1909, the firm of Harding, Whitman & Co. was suc-
ceeded by a new firm, William Whitman & Company, with Mr. Whitman
as senior and managing partner.
The great businesses of these mills and of this firm of commission
merchants did not compass the work done by Mr. Whitman. He took
an active and alert interest in the business and industrial development of
the country in its larger aspects, and in the political and social questions
having a bearing upon the industries in which he was primarily engaged.
He was a prominent member of the National Association of Wool Manu-
facturers, and served as its president in 1888-94: but through stress of
business duties declined such services in 1894-1904 while consenting to
serve on its executive board. In 1904 he again was chosen president and
was re-elected in 1905 and successive years.
In politics he was a staunch adherent of the Republican party, and in
that organization he exerted a large influence upon public aft'airs, especially
along the lines of industrial economy and the trade and tariff of the
United States. He became an acknowledged authority in tariff matters,
especially in connection with the manufacture of woolens and as to the
effects of proposed tariff legislation. The textile manufacturers of the
United States sought from him expressions of opinion gathered from his
large personal experience and his wide and thorough study of the subject
of textile manipulation.
He was the author of "Free Raw Materials as Related to New Eng-
land Industries ;" "Free Coal — Would it Give New England Manufacturers
Cheaper Fuel ?" "Some Reasons Why Commercial Reciprocity is Imprac-
ticable;" "Objections to Reciprocity on Constitutional and Practical
Grounds;" "What are the Protected Industries?" "The Tariff Revisionist;
an Example of the Nature of his Demand," and other papers on economical
questions widely circulated and which attracted universal attention. His
style is direct, compact and forcible, writing as he does facts gathered
from experience to prove his convictions, and not visionary theories but
ill-digested. His club affiliations included the Arkwright Club, American
Academy of Political and Social Science (life member), Boston Press
Club (life member), Bostonian Society, Bunker Hill Monument .A-Ssocia-
tion, Chamber of Commerce, Commercial Club, Country Club, Eastern
Yacht Club, Home Market Club, Massachusetts Club, Massachusetts Horti-
OF THE UNITED STATES 363
cultural Society (life member), Mamifacturers' Club of Philadelphia, New
England Historic-Genealogical Society, Republican Club of Massachusetts,
Society of Arts and the Union Club.
Mr. Whitman married, Jan. 19, 1865, Jane Dole, daughter of James
Hendricks and Mary Ann (Arnold) Hallett, of Boston, a descendant from
distinguished Loyalist families which left New York in 1783 at the close
of the American Revolution, and made their homes in St. John's New
Brunswick. Eight children were born of this marriage and four sons and
three daughters were living in 1910.
THOMAS ST. JOHN LOCKWOOD.
Thomas St. John Lockwood was born in Roxbury, Mass., July 5,
1853, the son of Commodore Samuel and Maria (Dunbar) Lockwood, aiid
a descendant of Robert Lockwood, who came from England in i6jo,
settled in Watertown, Mass., and later founded the town of Fairfield,
Connecticut. The subject of this sketch attended the public schools in
Roxbury, and subsequent to his graduation from the Roxbury High School
entered the woolen house of E. Allen & Co., Franklin Street, Boston, where
he remained for three years and there obtained his early knowledge of
the woolen goods business. In August, 1877, he was engaged as clerk by
Parker, Wilder & Co., Dry Goods Commission Merchants of Boston and
New York, and after some time spent in the Boston office and at one of
the mills, in the interest of the firm, he returned to Boston and worked up.
to the position of salesman, and was admitted to the house as a partner
in 1891.
In addition to his connection with Parker, Wilder & Co., Mr. Lock-
wood was president and director of the Sterling Mills, of Lowell, and also
a director of the Union Mills, of Peterboro, N. H., in which his firm is
interested, and he declined directorships in a number of corporations. As
a member of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, he was appointed a
member of its Investing Committee, and he was a trustee of the Eliot Five
Cents Savings Bank, a member of the Somerset, Country and Exchange
Clubs, Society Colonial Wars, Bunker Hill Monument Association, Bostoft-
ian Society and Pilgrim Society.
Mr. Lockwood married, October 14, 1890, Emmeline, daughter of
John Ward Gurley and Emmeline (Dabney) Stackpole. Two children
were born to them: Dunbar, Oct. 19, 1891, and Grace Stackpole, July 10,
1893.
364 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
FRANKLIN WARREN HOBBS.
Franklin Warren Hobbs was born in Roxbury, Suffolk County, Mass.,
September 24, 1868, son of William and Mary Marland (Cogswell) Hobbs:
grandson of William Hobbs and of Francis Cogswell, great-grandson of
Abraham Marland and of William Cogswell and a descendant of Josiah
Hobbs who came from England to Watertown, Massachusetts Bay Colony,
in 1685, and settled in that portion which afterwards became the town of
Weston. His maternal ancestor, John Cogswell, came from Bristol, Eng-
land, in 1635, and settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts Bay Colony. John
Cogswell's grandsons. Col. Thomas and Surgeon-in-Chief William Cogswell,
of Haverhill, Mass., were prominent men in their day, being two of four-
teen sons and five daughters born to Nathaniel Cogiswell, and two of the
nine sons that reached adult years and two of the eight who joined the
Revolutionary army. Thomas, who married Ruth, daughter of Gen. Joseph
Badger, was captain of a company in Colonel Gerrish's regiment at Bunker
Hill; was major of Colonel Vose's regiment from Feb. 21, 1777, and
lieutenant-colonel of the 15th Massachusetts line, Nov. 26, 1779, subse-
quently serving as wagon-master-general to the close of the war, when he
settled in Gilmington, New Hampshire, where he served as judge of the
Court of Common Pleas, 1784-1810. His son, Nathaniel (1773-1813), died
in Mexico while holding a general's commission in the patriot army in
the rebellion of that j'ear, and two other sons, Thomas and Francis, died
in the military service of the United States in the second war with Great
Britain. William Cogswell (1760-1831), a younger brother of Colonel
Thomas, entered his brother's company when fifteen years of age, and having
served his term of enlistment, studied medicine and surgery, and, in 1778,
re-enlisted under General Sullivan. He was surgeon's mate in the military
hospital at West Point, N. Y., 1781-84; surveyor-in-chief of the hospital
and chief medical officer of the U. S. Army, 1784-85, and a founder of
the New Hampshire Medical Society and of the Atkinson Academy. Mr.
Hobbs' maternal grandfather, Francis Cogswell, was a woolen manufacturer,
lawyer, and president of the Boston and Maine Railroad, and his great-
grandfather, Abraham ^larland (Ibid), was the founder of the Marland
Manufacturing Company, of Andover, Mass. Franklin Warren Hobbs was
educated at the Brookline Public Schools and the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, where he was graduated bachelor of science in the depart-
ment of mechanical engineering, in 1889. He was instructor in mechanical
engineering at the Institute, 1889-91, and in 1891 he took a position in the
Arlington Mills, Lawrence, Mass., one of the largest textile corporations
in the world, employing 8,000 persons and having a capital stock of $8,000,-
000 (1911) Mr. Hobbs served his corporation from 1902 as treasurer
and executive officer.
Mr. Hobbs was actively identified with the educational, historical.
■'f/Srirt I r-
OF THE UNITED STATES 36s
religious and benevolent movements, having in charge the pubHc weal of
Brookline, and his service as a member of the school committee, its
secretary for several years and its chairman as successor to Prentiss Cum-
mings from 1904, is especially appreciated by the parents in Brookline.
He was also elected a member of the Educational and Historical societies
and a vestryman in St. Paul's Episcopal Church. He was an original
trustee of the Lowell Textile School, and by appointment of Governor Crane
he was made a State Trustee in 1900. He served as president of the
National Association of Cotton Manufacturers, a member of the Executive
Committee of National Association of Wool Manufacturers, Trustee of
Mt. Auburn Cemetery, vice-president of M. I. T. Alumni Association,
director of Arkwright Mutual Fire Insurance Co., Home Market Club,
the Riverdale Press, Manomet Mills, and a member of the Council of the
Beverly Yacht Club. He was also a member of the following: Union Club,
Country Club, Technology Club, Arkwright Club, Chamber of Commerce
of Boston, Episcopalian Club, ATerrimack Valley Country Club, Massa-
chusetts Club, Sons of the Revolution, Society of Colonial Wars, Eastern
Yacht Club, Sippican Yacht Club, the Society of Arts, Old Colony Club
and Brookline Republican Town Committee.
Mr. Hobbs married. May 31, 1892, Jane Hallett, daughter of William
and Jane Dole (Hallett) Whitman, and their children were: William
Whitman, Marland Cogswell, Franklin Warren. Jr., and Rebekah Hobbs.
ALFRED HENRY LITTLEFIELD.
Alfred Henry Littlefield was born April 2, 1829, in Scituate, R. L
He was the son of John and Deborah (Himes) Littlefield, and was of the
eighth generation in direct descent from that member of his family who
first settled in America, through his grandfather, John Littlefield; Nathaniel
and Catherine (Sands) Littlefield.; Nathaniel and Margaret (Mitchell)
Littlefield ; Caleb Littlefield ; Francis and Rebecca Littlefield ; Edmund and
Annis (or Ann) Littlefield. Edmund Littlefield who was born at Tichfield,
England, in 1591 or '92, came to New England in 1637, and was of Boston.
Exeter, and finally settled in Wells, Maine, where he died Dec. 11, 1661.
He was one of the first settlers in Wells and was a commissioner with
Wheelwright & Knight. Some members of the family claim that he was a
churchman and Royalist who was excluded from Boston for his religious
and political opinions.
Francis, his son, was born in Lichfield, England, in 1619. He married
(first) Jane, daughter of Ralph Hill, of Plymouth, Mass. She died in
1646, and he married Rebecca (Hill) in 1648. Of Caleb little is said.
366 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Nathaniel, his son, was admitted a freeman in 1721, of New Shoreham
(Block Island), R. I., where he was a prominent man, being a representative
from his town in the legislature in 1738, 1740, 1746, 1748 and 1754.
Nathaniel, his son, was admitted a freeman in 1756. He had a seat in the
legislature in 1758 and again in 1762.
Of John, grandfather of Alfred Henry Littlefield, little mention is made.
His father, John, had eleven children, several of whom became prominently
distinguished, among them the subject of this sketch. John Littlefield
removed from North Kingstown, R. I., to Scituate in 1828, and in 1831 to
Natick, in the town of Warwick, where he died June 23, 1847.
Alfred Henry Littlefield received a rudimentary course of instruction
in the public schools of Natick, in the town of Warwick, R. L, and at the
age of eight entered the Sprague Mills and there remained until the fall
of 1844, when he again attended school in Natick for six months. In 1845,
he became a clerk in the employ of Joseph M. Davis, a merchant of Central
Falls, R. I., and he also engaged in a small way in the business of puttmg
up "skein" and "spool cotton." In 1846 or '47, George L. Littlefield, an
elder brother of Alfred H., took over the business of Mr. Davis, and took
as his partner Elias Nickerson. In 1849, Mr. George L. Littlefield became
sole proprietor and his younger brother continued as his clerk until 1851,
when George L. Littlefield sold the store, and the firm of Littlefield Bros,
was formed to continue the thread business, with stores at Haydenville,
Mass., and also at Pawtucket, R. I.
In 1854 the store business was sold out, and George L. and Alfred H.
Littlefield formed a partnership with David Ryder, under the firm name of
David Ryder & Co., manufacturers of yarns. Later on, the brothers pur-
chased Mr. Ryder's interest, and the business was carried on by them from
1858 to 1889 under the firm name of Littlefield Brothers. In 1889, Georg^e
L. Littlefield retired from the business and a company was formed and
incorporated under the name of the Littlefield IManufacturing Company,
of which Alfred H. Littlefield became president, and his sons, Alfred H.,
Jr., and Eben N., treasurer and secretary respectively. This company is
one of the most extensive industries of Pawtucket, the product being cotton
yarns and thread. The works are on the west bank of the Blackstone
River between the upper and lower dams at Pawtucket Falls.
Alfred H. Littlefield, Sr., was one of the incorporators of the Pawtucket
Hair Cloth Company, and one of the directors from its inception in 1861
until his death. He had other business interests and was a director of the
First National Bank of Pawtucket, Royal Weaving Company, Pawtucket
Gas Company, Pawtucket Street Railway Company.
Mr. Littlefield was prominent in civic and military affairs and attained
to the highest dignity in the .State. Originally a Whig, he .became a
Republican on the formation of that party, and during the Civil War was
a zealous supporter of the Union cause, and gave frequent and generous
OF THE UNITED STATES 367
assistance to the families of those who were absent in the field. In 1864,
he was appointed Division Inspector of the Rhode Island Militia, with the
rank of colonel, and held the office for five years.
His political career was long and varied. From June, 1873, to June,
1877, he was a member of the town council of Lincoln, and in 1876 to
1877 was representative of that town in the General Assembly. In 1878,
he was elected a member of the upper house of the State Legislature, and
was elected again in 1879. In March, 1880, he was nominated for governor
by the Republican party, and at the election he received 10,224 votes against
7,440 votes for the Democratic nominee, Horace A. Kimball, and 5,047
votes for the Prohibition candidate, Howard. As the law requires a
majority vote, the election devolved upon the General Assembly, and he
was chosen governor by a vote of eighty-two Republicans against twenty
Democrats.
In 1881, the total vote for governor was 16,201, of which Governor
Littlefield received 10,849; the Democratic candidate, Horace A. Kimball,
4,756; the Prohibition candidate, 825. In 1882, the total number of votes
cast was 15,523, of which Governor Littlefield polled 10,056.
Governor Littlefield advised the establishment of a State Industrial
School, for pauper and vagrant children, in his message in 1882, and made
valuable suggestions tending to the betterment and increased usefulness
of the public school system of the State, advocating the introduction of
the elementary principles of physics and mechanics, so as to better fit the
people for the development of the manufacturing industries of the State.
During Governor Littlefield's term of office, the State entertained as its
guests the representatives of the French government, who came to this
country to attend the Centennial anniversarj' of the surrender of the
British forces at Yorktown.
Alfred H. Littlefield married, February 9, 1853, Rebecca Jane, daughter
of Ebenezer and Jane (Padwell) Northrup, of Central Falls, R. I., and had
four children: (i) Eben Northrup (See sketch. Ibid.); (2) Minnie Jane,
died young; (3) George Howard, died young; (4) Alfred H., Jr., who was
born in Central Falls, R. I., was ediicated at Mowry & Gofif's English and
Classical School, Providence. After leaving school, he was for some
time a clerk in the Providence County Savings Bank of Pawtucket, and
after that was associated with his father, and upon the death of the latter,
in 1893, became president of the Littlefield Manufacturing Company.
On account of ill health, Mr. Littlefield resided for the greater part of
the time, in the last few years of his life, in the Adirondacks, and while on
the way home from there, he died at Albany, N. Y., August 6, 1907. He
married Clara B., daughter of Charles C. Holland, of Central Falls, R. I.,
there being no issue. Governor Littlefield died at his residence in Broad St.,
Central Falls, R. I., December 21, 1893. His remains were interred in
Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, R. I.
368 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
FREDERIC CLARK SAYLES.
Frederic Clark Sayles, was born July 17, 1835, on what is now East
Avenue, Pawtucket, R. I. He was the son of Clark and Mary Ann (Olney)
Sayles, and was descended through Ahab and Lillis (Steere) Sayles, Israel
and Marsa (Whipple) Sayles, Richard and Mercy (Phillips) Sayles, John
and Elizabeth (Olney) Sayles; from John Sayles, who is said to have come
from England in 1645, and is of record in Providence, 165 1. He was a
man of property and distinction and filled various public positions. He
married, in 1650, Mary, daughter of Roger and Mary Williams. They
both died in 1681. On the maternal side, Mr. Sayles was descended through
Paris and Marcy (Winsor) Olney; Emor and Amy (Hopkins) Olney;
James and Hannah (Winsor) Olney; Epenetus and Mary (Williams)
Olney; Epenetus and (Whipple) Olney; from Thomas Olney, a
native of Hertford, Hertfordshire in England, who came to America in the
ship "Planter," and stopped first at Salem, but later was one of the founders
of Providence with Roger Williams, Mr. Olney being one of the thirteen
proprietors of Providence. Clark Sayles, father of F. C. Sayles, moved to
Pawtucket in 1822, and there followed the occupation of a master builder.
He also engaged in the coal and lumber trade, being the first man to intro-
duce coal into Pawtucket by vessel ; and in the sale and milling of lumber in
the South, and was for seventeen years president of the New England
Pacific Bank.
Frederick C. Sayles obtained his education partly in the best schools of
Savannah, Georgia, where he spent his winters from 1840 to 1845, and in
the schools of Pawtucket, the University Grammar School of Providence,
and the Providence Conference Seminary of East Greenwich, where he was
graduated with honor in 1833. He then began his business career at the
Moshassuck Bleachery at Saylesville owned by his brother, William F.
Sayles. He applied himself to thoroughly mastering all the details of every
department in the great establishment and after laboring faithfully and
efficiently for ten years, he was taken into partnership by his brother, Jan.
I, 1863, and the business up to the time of the death of its senior partner,
Mr. W. F. Sayles, was styled W. F. & F. C. Sayles. In 1868, the rapid
increase of the business and the prospect of a still further increase induced
the partners to greatly enlarge their facilities by the erection of the so-
. called new bleachery under the personal supervision, and according to the
plans of Mr. F. C. Sayles. The finishing of lawns and nainsooks, the finer
class of cotton goods, were first accomplished in this country at the Sayles
Bleachery, in a department established by Mr. F. C. Sayles.
The Lorraine Worsted Mills and the Glenlyon Dye Works were also
under Mr. F. C. Sayles' management, and were successful from the outset.
The various enterprises of the Sayles Brothers are among the leading
industries of New England, and afford employment to about four thousand
s^^
OF THE UNITED STATES 369
people in Pawtucket and the adjacent village of Saylesville, which with its
well-kept streets, neat houses, its railroad facilities and its beautiful
memorial church, is a lasting monument to the founders from whom it
takes its name. On the death of W. F. Sayles, the various enterprises!
developed with such great success by the brothers were reorganized into
three separate companies. Frank A. Sayles, the son of W. F. Sayles,
inherited his father's interest in the business and in 1896 purchased his
uncle's interest in the bleachery property, the Glenlyon Dye Works, the
Lorraine Mills, and the Crefeld Mills at Westerly. In 1900, Mr. F. C. Sayles
organized the Baltic Mills at Baltic, Conn., and erected one of the hand-
somest mill buildings in New England. He was president of the company
from its organization until his death, when his son Frederic Clark Sayles
(2) succeeded him.
Mr. Sayles was connected witli several business enterprises, in which
he held various offices. He was the first president of the Pawtucket
Business Men's Association, and served for four years in that capacity.
In 1885, when the charter of the city of Pawtucket was adopted, he became
its first mayor and gave such general satisfaction in that capacity that he
was re-elected for a second term of office in 1886, and declined a third
election in the following year.
During the last twenty years of his life, Mr. Sayles gave full vent to
his hobby of raising race horses and at Mariposa farm, which he owned at
the time of his death, he collected as wonderful an assemblage of fast
trotting mares and dams of trotters as ever belonged to a single owner.
Later on he also secured the son of Campbell's Electioneer, Symvoleer,
whose record of 2. 11 as a two-year-old, was the best made in its time.
Other noted horses at the farm included Sable Wilkes, Consuelo S., Wise- .
burn. Hand Spring, and Alix, queen of the turf. ]\Ir. Sayles at great
expense brought together a splendid collection of brood mares, and horsemen
far and near prized the colts raised at Mariposa, whose entries at numerous
horse shows have been conspicuous as prize winners.
Mr. Sayles was ever ready to encourage and give pecuniary assistance
to every worthy cause, either of education, temperance, or religion. He gave
to the city of Pawtucket the Deborah Cook Sayles Memorial Library, a
noble edifice which was formally dedicated and officially presented to the
city in the fall of 1902. He was an extensive traveller, and visited all the
principal cities of England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria,
Belgium, Holland, Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and
Italy, and also visited Mexico and the Pacific Coast.
Mr. Sayles married, October 16, 1861, Deborah Cook Wilcox, and had
five children: (i) Caroline Minerva, born January 16, 1866, married (first)
Frederic William Holls, of Yonkers, N. Y., and (second) October 2. 1906,
Albert Percival Chittenden; (2) Frederic Clark, born August 21, 1868,
was graduated from Amherst in the class of 1890, became vice-president and
370 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
treasurer of the Baltic MUh Co., with mills at Baltic, Conn., and a director
in the Merchants' National Bank, succeeding his father in that capacity. He
married Mary Lamper, daughter of Barton E. Kingman, of Yonkers, N. Y.,
and had five children: Helen Kingman, Frederic Clark, Jr., Caroline Alden,
Mary Gardner and Barton Kingman; (3) Benjamin Paris, born October
31, 1871, died May 30, 1873; (4) Robert Wilcox, born January 20, 1878,
attended Andover Academy, was graduated from Harvard in 1901, became
secretary of the Baltic Mills Company; married, June i, 1904, Adelaide
Kimball Burton and had one child, Deborah Wilcox, born February 23,
1906; and (5) Deborah Wilcox, born November 17, 1880; married, June 14,
1905, Rev. Fred Burnett Hill.
Mr. Sayles died at his home at Bryn Mawr on East Avenue, Pawtucket,
R. I., January 5, 1903, and was buried in Swan Point Cemetery, Providence.
LEANDER R. PECK.
Leander R. Peck was born at Barrington, R. I., February 12, 1843,
son of Asa and Lucretia (Remington) Peck. He was educated in Barring-
ton, in the High School at Warren, under Professor Cady. and at East
Greenwich Academy, February 14, i860. At the age of seventeen, he
removed to Providence, Rhode Island, and accepted a position as clerk in
the fancy dry goods and milliner's store of his uncle, Jeremiah S. Remington,
remaining with him in this capacity for three or four years.
In 1866 the firm of Asa Peck & Co. was formed, for the purpose of
buying and selling woolen waste, shoddies, etc. At that time, this particiilar
line of business was comparatively new to Rhode Island, and all previous
attempts to make a success of it had failed. Leander R. Peck, however,
had become thoroughly imbued with the idea that there was a promising
future in store for such a company, and time proved the truth of his theory.
For the first year or so, as with many new ventures, the issue was doubtlul
at times, but eventually its success became assured, and it is no disparage-
ment to anyone else connected' with the firm to state this success was in a
very great measure due to his personal efforts and keen insight into the
business of the company, directing its policy, and assuming those duties
which called for marked executive ability. The members of the firm were :
Asa Peck, with Leander R. Peck, until 1878, when the late \\'alter A. Peck
became a member. Asa Peck retired some years before his death, and
Walter A. in 1899. On Jan. i, 1903, the firm was incorporated, under the
name of Asa Peck & Company, Incorporated, the officers being: Leander
R. Peck, president and treasurer; Frederick S. Peck, assistant treasurer
and secretary (became treasurer); G. Ploward Smith, vice-president: W.
OF THE UNITED STATES 37i
H. Cannon, auditor; and Walter F. Seymour, director. The firm, besides
being the first of its kind in the State of Rhode Island, became long ago the
leading one. Mr. Peck was president of the Lawton Spinning Co., at one
time a director of the Union Trust Co., of Providence, and its vice-president.
He was also director of numerous other financial corporations of this city,
and filled an important place in the commercial life of the county and State.
Mr. Peck's pride and delight was his home in Barrington, known as
the Osamequin Farm, where he spent his summers. The land was deeded
by the Indians to one of his ancestors, in 1653. and has never been out of
the family. It contains more than two hundred and fifty acres, and is
rightly pointed out as a "model farm." One of his specialties was orchids,
his greenhouses containing over three thousand species ; another was
trotting horses. In 1899 was begun a collection of copper and silver lustre
which became the finest in the country. He bought the ground and started
the Pomhan Club, and was for some years, early in its history, chairman
of the E.xecutive Committee, and then its president.
In politics he was an Independent Democrat, and for four years was a
member of the Council in the City of Providence. He was also a member
of the Board of Trade, and at the time of his death a member of the
Barrington Town Council. He belonged to various clubs.
September 3, 1866, Mr. Peck married Sarah Gould Cannon, born April
25, 1844, daughter of Charles and Mary P. (Fisher) Cannon, the former of
Newport, R. I., and the latter of Edgartown, Mass. They had two children:
I, a son, Frederick Stanhope, born Dec. 16, 1868, married, June 6, 1894,
Mary Rothwell, born Jmie 30, 1873, daughter of Edwin H. and Eliza
(Aylsworth) Burlingame; they had one child, Helen, born Dec. 22, 1895, in
Providence. 2, a daughter, Edith Remington, born March 14, 1874, who
married, November 15, 1898, Frank N. Phillips, president of the American
Electrical Works, East Providence. They have one daughter, Charlotte,
born Jan. 3, 1903. Leander R. Peck died in Providence, R. I., Jan. 28, 1909.
ALBERT GREENE DUNCAN.
Albert Greene Duncan was born in Cleveland, Ohio, December 12,
1868, son of the Rev. Dr. Samuel White (1838-98) and Sarah Margaret
Fuller (Greene) Duncan; grandson of Hon. James Henry (1793-1869) and
Mary (Willis) Duncan and of Judge Albert Gorton and Mary (Cliflford)
Greene, of Providence, Rhode Island ; great-grandson of James and Rebecca
(White) Duncan; great-(2)-grandson of James (who settled in Haverhill,
Mass., in 1740) and Elizabeth (Bell) Duncan ; great- (6) -grandson of George
Duncan of the Scotch-Irish Colony of Londonderry in the North of Ireland,
372 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
who settled in Londonderry, New Hampshire, in 1719. He was also
descended from John Greene, who with Samuel Groton came from Salis-
bury, England, to Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1635, and later
became an original settler of Warwick, founding that town and serving
the community as deputy governor of the province. Another immigrant
ancestor was William White, who came from England in 1635 and was the
first settler of Ipswich, Massachusetts Bay Colony. His grandfather,
James Henry Duncan, was graduated from Harvard, A. B., in 1812, was
a representative in the Massachusetts legislature five years, a State Senator
two years, member of the executive council and a representative for Massa-
chusetts in the thirty-first and thirty-second Congresses 1849-53, and his rria-
ternal grandfather, Albert Gorton Greene, of Providence, R. I., was the
author of "Old Grimes." His father. Dr. Samuel Duncan, was pastor of the
Euclid Avenue Baptist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, from 1867 to 1875.
Albert Greene Duncan was prepared for college at Phillips Academy,
Andover, Mass., and was graduated from the University of Rochester A. B.
in 1 89 1. He became a draughtsman in the construction department of
Westinghouse, Church, Kern & Co., working for both the Boston and New
York houses as draughtsman and constructing engineer, 1891-98, when
he became treasurer of the Deane Steam Pump Company, Holyoke, Mass.,
1898-1900. In 1900 he resigned, to accept the position of assistant treasurer
of the Dwight Manufacturing Company at Chicopee, Mass., and in 1903
transferred his services to the Chicopee Manufacturing Company, Chicopee
Falls, Mass. In 1909, Mr. Duncan accepted the presidency and treasurer-
ship of the Harmony Mills, located at Cohoes, N. Y., and managed that
mill as well as the Chicopee Manufacturing Co. He continued his profession
of engineering, devoting much time to the development of electrical trans-
mission of power for textile mills, and was elected, in May, 1909, a member
of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
W^ALTER H. SUMMERSBY.
Walter Henry Summersby. born in Pembroke, N. H., June 18, 1857,
was the son of William and Susan (Wall) Summersby. W^illiam Sum-
mersby was a civil engineer in Pembroke, and the subject of this sketch
remained in his native town until he reached his majority. He attended the
public .schools, later taking a course at the Pembroke Academy, and subse-
quent to his graduation, entered the Pembroke Textile Mills, in which he
had, during vacation times, worked since his tenth year. Starting in the
mule room, he went through each department until he finally worked as
weaver. At the age of twenty-one he left these mills to take charge of a
:L^£"i:
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d1M:SIILAiS CO
4^i
^OF THE UNITED STATES i7i
section of looms in the China Mills at Suncook, N. H., where he remained
until March, 1880. He then went to Newmarket, N. H., as a loom fixer,
and in a comparatively short time was promoted to the position of overseer
in the mill.
In order to procure a broader knowledge of manufacturing conditions
and the various methods of conducting trade, Mr. Summersby realized that
he must not confine himself to one particular place. He consequently went
to Fall River, where he secured a position in the Montaup IMills, later
known as the Osborne Mill, and, after assisting in improving the conditions
here, he left in 1884 to take charge of the weaving department of the
Arctic Mills, Arctic, R. I., where he worked with great success until 1886.
He next went to work in the St. Croix Mill, Milltown, N. B., and later
superintended the White Rock W\\\ at Westerly, R. I., which latter position
he held for seven years. He then went south to superintend a cotton mill
in Henderson, Ky. After a year's service here, he returned north to become
agent for the Pontiac Mills & Bleachery, Pontiac, R. I. While in Pontiac,
he served that town as postmaster for five years and also officiated ac-
ceptably on the Board of School Trustees for a like period.
In 1901, Mr. Summersby resigned his position with the Pontiac Alills
& Bleachery in order that he might become agent of the Atlantic Cotton
j\Iills, Lawrence, Mass. Great responsibilities were attached to this new
position, for into his hands was given the reconstruction of the property.
Undaunted, he set to work, step by step remodeled, furnished and made
over the plant, and under his supervision the new weave shed, known as
No. 5 Mill, was erected, and the first loom started Good Friday, April 17,
1908. He also built a brick cotton storehouse that would hold a year's
supply of cotton. The results obtained through his unremitting and skilful
efforts afforded much gratification to the owners of the Atlantic Mills, for
in an incredibly short time he had brought the mill back to a satisfactory
dividend basis.
Mr. Summersby was a director in the Lawrence Savings Bank, was a
member of the Board of Trade, Textile Club, and of many fraternal organiz-
ations, including the Masons, Knights Templar, the Shriners and the Odd
Fellows. He was also interested in the Lawrence Industrial School, and
as a trustee of that institution gave great encouragement to the progression
of its work.
Mr. Summersby married, April 26, 1888, Etta Frances, daughter of
Calvin H. and Sarah { Dore> Weymouth, and had issue of four children.
One son, George W., at this writing (1911) is in charge of the designing and
dressing department of the Atlantic Cotton IMills.
\A'alter H. Summersby died in Lawrence, Mass., June 23, 1910, his
wife and children surviving him.
374 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
JAMES SULLIVAN AMORY.
James Sullivan Amory was born in Boston, Mass., ]\Tay 14, 1809: son
of Jonathan and Mehitable (Sullivan) Cutler Amory; grandson of Thomas
and Elizabeth (Coffin) Amory and of Gov. James Sullivan, the fifth
governor of Massachusetts; and a descendant through Thomas and
Rebecca (Holmes) Amory; Jonathan (1653-99) and Rebecca (Houston)
Amory; Thomas (1608-67) and Ann (Elliott) Amory; from Hugh Amory,
of W'rington, Somersetshire, England, and of Robert Elliott, of Bristol,
England. Jonathan (1653-99) was the first of the family in America and
he came by way of Dublin, Ireland, and the Barbadoes, West Indies, and
settled in Charleston, South Carolina, about 1691, where he was speaker
of the Assembly, advocate general and treasurer of the province. His son,
Thomas, was also an immigrant, accompanied his parents to the Barbadoes,
but was educated in England, was a merchant at Augra, in the Azores,
where he was consul for the English and Holland governments, and in the
year 1719, returned to Charleston by way of Boston, and in 1720 settled in
Boston as a merchant. His son, Thomas, was graduated from Harvard in
1741. He studied theology, but became a merchant. He had nine children,
and the third, Jonathan, was graduated from Harvard in 1787, and became a
clerk in the business house of his uncles, Jonathan and John Amory, engaged
in business with James Cutler and later with his elder brother, Thomas
Coffin Amory.
Jonathan's third child, James Sullivan Amory, attended the private
school of Captain Partridge near Boston, passed two years at Harvard
College and received his A. B. degree out of course. James Sullivan Amory
made two trips to Calcutta as supercargo and frequent visits to Europe.
He was treasurer of the Nashua Manufacturing Company and of the
Jackson Company, of Nashua, N. H., manufacturers of cotton goods, and
of the Lancaster Mills, of Clinton, Mass. He also served as president of
the Provident Institution for Savings and as a director in various business
enterprises. He served in the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia as colonel
of the Independent Corps of Cadets.
Mr. Amory married. November 28, 1837, Mary Copley, daughter of
Gardner and Elizabeth (Clark) Greene, and their son, Robert Amory, born
May 3, 1842, was a noted physician and author in Boston for many years
and subsequently president of the Brookline Gaslight Company.
James Sullivan Amory died in Boston, Mass., June 8, 1884.
■/V.'lv''- ^M.C.'^AA -
T
OF THE UNITED STATES 375
ARTHUR AMORY.
Arthur Amor) was born in Boston. Mass., Feb. 6, 1841 ; son of
James Sullivan and Mary Copley (Greene) Amory. (See sketch of James
Sullivan Amory, Ibid). He was educated at the Latin school of Epes S.
Dixwell, of Boston, and at Harvard University, graduating in 1862 and
receiving the degree of A. M. in course. The year following his graduation
he entered the employ of the dry goods commission house of Slade &
Colby, N. Y. The firm dissolved in 1866 and he accepted a partnership in
the commission house of Upham Tucker & Co., selling agents for several
extensive New England cotton mills, the firm being a branch of the old
Boston house of the same name established about 1828.
In 1877, Mr. Amory removed to Boston to become a partner in the
parent house, and in 1891 the firm became Amory, Browne & Co., with
Mr. Amory as senior partner. In 1897 Mr. Amory became interested in
the manufacture of cotton, and he directed the establishment of the Indian
Head Mills, of Alabama, situated at Cordova, Alabama, and he was made
president of the corporation, a position which he still held in 191 1. He
likewise served on the directorate of the Old Boston National Bank, which
was established in 1803. In conjunction with Albert C. Haseltine, James
H. Fay, Chas. F. Fearing and Dr. G. Perry, Mr. Amory, while in New York,
organized the Harvard Club in 1866.
Mr. Amory married Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Ingersoll, of Phila-
delphia, and had three sons and two daughters.
WILLARD LOVERING.
Willard Lovering was born in Holliston, Mass., Nov. 18, 1801. He
was the son of William and Mehitable (daughter of Samuel and Mary
(Bullard) Claflin, of Framingham, Mass.), grandson of Thaddeus and
Elizabeth ( Littlefield ) Lovering, and a descendant of William Lovering
from the parish of Oldham, County of Suffolk, England.
Willard Lovering was brought up on his father's farm and attended
the district school, obtained a schoolteacher's certificate and taught school.
He continued at that occupation, however, only a short time, having
determined to learn the business of cotton manufacturing. To this end
he found employment in the City Cotton Mills at Franklin, Norfolk County,
Mass., where he obtained rapid advancement and was given entire charge
of the mills. The Blackstone Canal Corporation of Providence, Rhode
Island, learning of his skill and executive ability as a manufacturer, gave
him entire charge and made him collector in 1830, and in 1833 he resigned to
27b TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
become agent of the Carrington Mills, at Woonsocket, R. I. In 1836 he
became part owner and manager of the Whittenton Mills, at Taunton, and
he operated that mill successfully for twenty years; but in 1857 the failure
of C. H. Mills & Company, his partners, and the principal owners of the
mills, forced the concern into liquidation, and in 1858, he, with his son,
Charles L. Lovering, purchased the property.
In 1864 ill health forced him to retire, and his sons. Charles L., William
C. and Henry M. Lovering, assumed entire charge of the business of the
Whittenton Mills, and in 1883 incorporated the Whittenton Manufacturing
Company with a capital of $600,000, with W. C. Lovering as president,
Charles L. Lovering, treasurer, and Henry M. Lovering, agent and clerk.
Willard Lovering was a charter member and the first president of
the Taunton Savings Bank, organized in 1869: president of the Taunton
Branch Railroad, and a director in the Machinists' National Bank. He
served the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a representative in the
General Court, 1865-66, and as a citizen of Taunton he was interested in
the welfare of the city, was a leader in measures for the betterment of the
largely increasing population, drawn to the place by the various growing
industries centred there, and a member and officer in St. Thomas Protestant
Episcopal Church. Mr. Lovering married (first) Nov. 13, 1831, Susan
Longhead, of Warren, R. I., and they had two children; (second) Sarah
Cary Morton, daughter of Gov. Marcus Morton, and they had two children.
Mr. Lovering died in Taunton, Mass., Dec. 15, 1875.
CHARLES LOUGHEAD LOVERING.
Charles Longhead Lovering was born at Woonsocket, R. I., Aug.
31, 1833; son of Willard and Susan (Longhead) Lovering. (For gene-
alogy see sketch of Willard Lovering.) He was educated in the public
schools at Taunton, Mass., and at Webster School, Cambridge, Mass. He
received his early training in mill management at the Whittenton Mills, at
Taunton, Mass., of which his father was superintendent and part owner ;
and in 1858, when the failure of C. H. Mills Co., his father's partners,
caused the liquidation of the firm, Charles L. joined his father in the pur-
chase of the business which under their management soon regained a firm
and prosperous condition. In 1864 his father retired, and Charles L. with
his brothers, William C. and Henry M. Lovering, assumed entire control of
the Whittenton Mills; in 1883 they were incorporated as the Whittenton
Manufacturing Company with Charles L. as treasurer.
Later in life his constructive genius found full scope in larger enter-
prises, including the Massachusetts Mills and Alerrimack Manufacturing
OF THE UNITED STATES Z77
Company, of Lowell. When cotton was booming in the Southern States, he
conceived the plan of establishing mills there, as branches of the Massachu-
setts Cotton Mills, of Lowell, of which he was treasurer; and was instru-
mental in establishing the Massachusetts Cotton Mills at Lindale, Ga.
Many of the directors of the Massachusetts Cotton Mills were strongly
opposed to these plans, but he persisted in putting them into operation, and
their feasibility was proven by the eminently successful results, the Georgia
Mills becoming valuable assets of the Northern corporations.
When the consolidation of the American Felt Mills, having their
headquarters in New York City, with manufacturing plants at Glenville,
Conn. ; bVanklin, Norfolk and Rockville, Mass. ; Picton, N. J., and Dolge-
ville, N. Y., was under advisement, Charles L. Lovering was unanimously
chosen as the fitting person to assure the success of the consolidation, a
choice which he amply justified. He was treasurer of the Massachusetts
Cotton Mills from 1890; of the Merrimack Mfg. Co. 1900: of the Whit-
tenton Mills; of the Massachusetts Mills in Georgia, from its incorporation
in 1894, and of the American Felt Company; a director of the Elizabeth
Pool Mills and the Gosnold Mills, director of the Old Colony R. R. Co.,
a trustee of the Boston Terminal ; vice-president of the Massachusetts
Hospital Life Ins. Co. and a member of the corporation of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
Mr. Lovering married Sarah R. Maltby and had si.x children, three of
whom survived him — a daughter, Susan L., and his sons, Edward, who
succeeded him as treasurer of the Massachusetts Cotton Mills in Lowell,
Mass., and Lindale, Ga. ; and William, manager of the Taunton Dye Works
and Bleachery.
Charles L. Lovering died at his home at Taunton, Mass., May i, 1908.
WILLIAM C. LOVERING.
William C. Lovering was born in Woonsocket. Rhode Island. Feb. 25,
1835; the son of Susan (Longhead) and Willard Lovering. (See sketch
of Willard Lovering, Ibid.). When William C. was two years of age, the
family moved to Taunton. Mass.. where the father became part owner and
manager of the Whittenton Mills. The subject of this sketch was educated
in the grammar and high schools of Taunton, and upon graduation from the
latter took a course in Cambridge, Mass. Attaining his twenty-first year,
he became clerk under his father in the Whittenton Mill. Naturally studious
and enterprising, William Lovering began to familiarize himself with the
working of every department from the picker room to the weaving room,
and gradually acquired a knowledge of every piece of machinery installed
378 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
therein, being able to dissect and put the same together again. From one
hundred and twenty looms the equipment of the Whittenton Mills grew to
1, 600 looms, William Lovering being one of the principal developers of the
business, and in 1883 he was elected president of the company. He did not
confintf his interest to the Whittenton Mills, but in course of time became
affiliated with nearly every cotton manufacturing and yarn industry
in Taunton. He was pecuniarily interested in the Cohannet Yarn Mills,
Westville Mill (a branch of the Whittenton), Elizabeth Pool Mill and
Canoe River Mills, being instrumental in the building of the two latter.
In political and public affairs, Mr. Lovering was also actively interested.
He served seven times as Congressman, and figured prominently in the
discussion of cjuestions placed before the House. In 1874 he was prominent
in the State Senate in the matter of repealing the resolutions of Charles
Sumner. He made a special study of the currency question and advocated
most strongly the bill prohibiting trading in futures, especially referring to
cotton. For two years he was president of the New England Cotton Manu-
facturers' Association and also of the Arkwright Club. He was a delegate
to the Chicago Convention from his district, when Garfield was nominated,
and presided over the presidential delegate convention in Boston, in i8q2.
Mr. Lovering was president of the American Mutual Liability Insurance
Co., and was for many years president of the Bristol County Agricultural
Society. He was a member of the Grand Arrny of the Republic, having
served as quartermaster of the Second Massachusetts Brigade, comprising
the Third and Fourth regiments, during the Civil War.
June 9, 1863, Mr. Lovering married Mary Loring, daughter of Albert
E. and Phebe (Loring) Swasey, of Taunton, and three children were born
to them. Mr. Lovering died February 4, 1910, and was survived by his
three children, his wife having died September 4, 1881.
HENRY MORTON LOVERING.
Henry Morton Lovering was born in Tavmton, Bristol County, Mass.,
July 28, 1840; son of Willard (1801-75) and Sarah Cary (Morton) Lover-
ing; grandson of William and Mehitable (Claflin) Lovering, of Holliston,
Mass., and of Governor Marcus and Charlotte (Hodges) Morton, of
Taunton, Mass., and a descendant on his father's side from Robert Lovering
and Griffin Craft, and on his mother's side from George Morton, or Mourt,
financial agent of the Plymouth Colony, born in Yorkshire, England, 1585,
married, in 161 2, to Juliana, daughter of Alexander Carpenter, arrived in
Plymouth in the ship "Anne" in June, 1623, and was the author of "Mourt's
yv S^^T^^ -7^7^f ,
jmESH.LSB CO.
OF THE UNITED STATES 379
Relation," which was published in 1622, and gives the earliest account of
the Pilgrim enterprise.
Henry Morton Lovering was brought up in the town of Taunton,
where he was fitted for college at Bristol Academy. He was graduated
from Brown University, A. M., 1861, and entered the office of the Whitten-
ton Mills as clerk in the same year. In January, 1883, on the incorporation
of the business of the Whittenton Cotton Mills as the Whittenton Mfg.
Co., he was made agent and clerk and subsequently assistant treasurer of
the corporation. He was also a promoter, director and treasurer of the
Taunton Street Railway Company, organized in 1871, with a capital of
$40,000. He was a member of the board of water commisioners, from
1880, and president of the board from 1894. He also served as chief
marshal of the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the
founding of Taunton, June 4 and 5, 1889. He was president of the
Old Colony Historical Society from 1Q05 ; president of the Taunton Na-
tional Bank from 1900; trustee of the Taunton Savings Bank; president
of the Taunton Dye Works and Bleachery from 1893; treasurer of the
Elizabeth Poole Mills from 1003 ; president of the Taunton-New Bedford
Copper Company from 1898, and assistant trea.=urer of the Whittenton
Manufacturing Company from 1900.
Mr. Lovering was elected a member of the Union Club, of Boston, in
1887, and was prominent in the social life of his native city, as he was
in its educational, commercial and political welfare. A member and senior
warden of the St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Taunton.
He married, June 26, 1864. Isabel F. Morse, daughter of Jason and
Hannah Morse, of Taunton; and five children were born of the marriage:
Edith L. (Merrick); Mabel L. (Hathaway); Charlotte Morton; and
^ Dorothy; Henry Morton, Jr., died July 25, 1898.
WOODBURY KIDDER DANA.
Woodbury Kidder Dana was born in Portland, Maine, June 7, 1840.
He was the son of Luther and Louisa (Kidder) Dana, and a direct
descendant of Richard Dana, who came from England to Massachusetts
Bay Colony in 1640, and became a freeman of Cambridge. Ephraim Dana,
the grandfather of Woodbury K., died at Natick, Mass.. November 19,
1792. He was a farmer, selectman of his town, and served as a lieutenant
in the Continental Army during the Revolution. The youngest of his
eight children was Luther, the father of Woodbury. Luther Dana was
born April 10, 1792, went to Portland, Maine, when but sixteen years of
age, and was for four years one of the foremost merchants of that city,
38o TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Dana Street being named in his honor. His beautiful colonial residence
in State Street is still standing. He was a soldier in the War of 1812, and
upon returning home joined the militia. He was commissioned Ensign,
March 30, 1820, became captain, and resigned April 26, 1825. The first
commission signed by Governor King, the first governor of Maine, was
that of Notary Public for Luther Dana. Of the nine children of Luther
and Louisa (Kidder) Dana, five were living in 1907.
The subject of this sketch was educated at the Portland High School
and Lewiston Falls Academy. When but nineteen years of age. he
started manufacturing cotton warps at North Gray, Maine, and from then
on, with the exception of the time spent in the army, he devoted his life
to building up the business now controlled by the Dana Warp Mills.
The grandson of a Revolutionary soldier, the son of a veteran of the
War of 1812, it was foreordained that Mr. Dana should respond to Lincoln's
call for troops. On August 12, 1863, he enlisted from Androscoggin
County, Maine, for three years, or during the war, and was mustered into
service as a private in Co. K. 29th Me. Vol. Inf., Colonel George S. Real
commanding. The regiment reported to Gen. N. P. Banks at New Orleans,
Feb. 16, 1864, was assigned to the Second Brigade, First Division, 19th
Army Corps, and saw active service on the Red River Expedition, was
engaged at Sabine Cross Roads, Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, Cane River.
Alexandria, Mansura, and in other important battles. During most of
his service Mr. Dana was detailed as Ordance Sergeant, and in the
Commissary Department, becoming corporal and later Hospital Steward.
He was honorably discharged August 22. 1865.
In 1866 Mr. Dana with a partner began the manufacture of cotton
warps at Westbrook, Maine. The partner withdrew and Mr. Dana carried
on the business alone, producing warps which found a ready market In
1892 he caused the business to be incorporated as tiie Dana Warp Mills,
and has been its treasurer and general manager from that time. ( For a full
history, see Dana Warp Mills in this volume.)
His son, Philip, was graduated from Bowdoin College in 1896, and
became superintendent of the mills ; Luther was graduated from the same
institution in 1903, and became assistant superintendent. Both sons, in
1910, knew the business as it is possible for only those to know it who have
unlimited opportunity and every incentive to excel. Doubtless not a little
of the remarkable success which has attended the business of Dana Warp
Mills, during the last few years, has been due to the intelligent and cordial
co-operation of father and sons in promoting the interests of the concern.
Active as was the life of Woodbury K. Dana, he found time for much
besides his business of making warps well. Besides the welfare of his
family, three things have always been cherished by him ; the church, the
public schools and the municipality. In the affairs of the city, Mr. Dana
always took an active interest ; he was for many years an influential member
OF THE UNITED STATES 381
of the Republican City Committee; was for three years a member of the
city council, and for one year its president. When the question of a
general sewerage system arose, he had public lectures on the subject
delivered at his own expense by a prominent physician of Portland. He
was the first to light the city with electricity, but later sold the plant. He
was a member of the committee on building public schools, a trustee of
die Thatcher Grammar School Fund, and a member of the Walker
Memorial Library. In 1904 he was delegate from Maine to the Republican
National Convention, which nominated Roosevelt. He is (1911) vice-
president of the Home Market Club, of Boston ; also a member of Ancient
Landmark Lodge of Masons of Portland, and of St. Albans Commandry
and a Grand Army man.
Mr. Dana married, Aug. 22, 1869, Mary Littlehale Pickard, and
they had seven children.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW.
Benjamin Franklin Shaw was born in Monmouth, Maine, Nov. 22,
1832; son of Moses and Martha J. (Hoag) Shaw; grandson of Asa and
Susa (Webster) Shaw, and a descendant from Roger Shaw, the immigrant,
who appeared early in Cambridge and \N'atertown, Massachusetts Bay Col-
ony, and removed to Hampton, New Hampshire Grants, in. 1647. Served as
deputy from Hampton in the General Court of the Colony for several terms.
The family were originally from Scotland. Moses Shaw was a skilled
mechanic, carpenter and builder, and removed with his family, in 1841, to
Topsham, on the Androscoggin River.
Benjamin Franklin Shaw, who was so well informed as to be thought
by many to have been educated at college, was very nearly a self-taught
man. His schooling was limited to the winter sessions of the district .school
and a term at the Academy at Topsham.
In 1850 he took a position in a book store in Brunswick, Maine, and
about a year later became bookkeeper in a lumber yard at Gardiner, Maine.
On reaching his majority in November, 1853, his employers, at Gardiner,
sent him to Philadelphia as their agent. This agency he renounced in 1854
and found employment in the publishing house of Lippincott, Grambo & Co.,
subsequently J. B. Lippincott & Company, where his advancement was
rapid. In 1859 he built a home in Fisher's Lane, Germantown. He
prepared a Primary Geography to which for business reasons he apf)enJed
the name of Fordyce A. Allen, the principal of the Chester County Normal
School, who had carefully examined and approved the work. This 'success
was followed with a "Comprehensive Geography" which was published
382 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
in 1864, as the work of Benjamin F. Shaw and Fordyce A. Allen. His
health becoming impaired, he gave up his position in the publishing house
in Philadelphia, sold his home in Philadelphia and removed his familj' to
South Danvers, Mass., where he purchased a new home. He went to
Kansas in 1864 where he found in the wild life on a cattle ranch at Salina
no attractions for a permanent residence, and, in 1866, he returned to
Massachusetts with renewed health. Dr. J. C. Ayer & Co., of Lowell, upon
Mr. Shaw's return, made him general manager of outside operations for
the firm, including investments. While thus employed, he invented the
seamless stocking, and an automatic loom, which was the first circular
knitting machine ever produced, capable in itself of producing a stocking
without seams, having a rounded heel and toe. He patented the seamless
stocking April 23, 1867, and then laid both inventions aside, not being
fully satisfied with them, but intending to perfect them at a later time. He
resigned the position with Dr. J. C. Ayer & Co., sold his home in Soufli
Danvers, and removed to Cambridge, where he devoted his time to his
great inventions and to literary pursuits. In 1876, during a visit to Lowell,
he met his long-time friend, Earl Amri Thissell, and acquainted him with
his financial condition, and the impossibility of placing his loom in operation.
Mr. Thissell at once came to his aid, and in 1877 Mr. Shaw had perfected
his inventions and produced what afterwards became known as the Shaw-
knit Stocking with gusseted heel and instep. This stocking was patented
February 12, 1878, and thirty years' use has proved it to be the best fitting
stocking art could produce. The stocking and loom perfected, Mr. Shaw
exhibited the latter in Lowell, where he then resided, and the exhibition
resulted in the corporation of the Shaw Stocking Company, with a capital
of $30,000. In 1878 the company was operating eight looms, employing
twenty-four persons, and in 1879, and repeatedly thereafter, the capital
stock was increased, and new looms and subsidiary machinery were added
to the equipment, Mr. Shaw managing the enterprise up to his death in
1890, at which time the capital stock was $360,000, when 275 looms were
in operation, and nearly five hundred persons were on the pay-roll of tfte
company.
In 1879 he purchased 500 acres of land surrounding the famous
Ossipec Falls in IMoultnnborough. N. IL, and he converted the wild acres into
"Ossipee Mountain Park," which was thereafter his summer home. In
1880 he exhibited his loom in England and Germany, first patenting it
in London, and selling the right to manufacture the Shawknit stocking to
an English corporation known as the London & Leicester Hosiery Co., Ltd.,
for $75,000. ]\Ir. Shaw was a member of the Masonic order.
He befriended the two orphan children, Mamie and Lizzie Cole,
daughters of Jack Cole, a seaman, who lost his life in the expedition of
the "Jeannette" to the Arctic regions, gave them employment at his mill,
and had them at his summer home. He interested himself in their future
tNCBrsc^mxmis swafor
OF THE UNITED STATES 383
welfare by his efforts to procure aid for them from the United States
Government, an assistance due to the chihlren made orphans bv the extra-
ordinary sufifering of their father in the government service.
Mr. Shaw married, Jan. 20, 1853, Harriet Nowell Howard, a native
of Haverhill, Mass. Their children were: Charles Franklin Shaw (de-
ceased) ; Addie Francis Sliaw (deceased) ; Clifford Franklin Shaw; Ralph
Henry Shaw, the poet and author of a biography of his father, published
in 1893, and read before the Old Residents Historical Association of
Lowell ; Jennie May Shaw, who married Stanley James, of Concord, N. H.,
and Mary Alice Shaw (deceased). Benjamin Franklin Shaw died at his
home in Lowell, Mass., December 11, 1890.
FRANK PERRY SHELDON.
Frank Perry Sheldon was born in Providence, Rhode Island, Feb. 16,
1848. He was the son of Jeremiah Angell and Mary (Burbank) Sheldon;
grandson of Charles and Amy (Winsor) Sheldon, who was a direct
descendant of Samuel Winsor, who married Mercy Williams, sister of
Roger Williams, from which union began the Winsor family in Rhode
Island.
The subject of this sketch was educated in public schools in his native
town, and after graduation from the high school took a special course in
the scientific engineering and mechanical department of Schofield's Com-
mercial College, Providence, Rhode Island. He then went into the office
of N. B. Shubarth, civil engineer, where he remained for about a year. .
He was subsequently employed by the American Screw Co. in mechanical
drawing, and from that establishment passed into the machine shops of
James Brown, Pawtucket, R. I. Mr. Brown recommended him to Mr.
Foster Stafford, treasurer of the Union Mills, Fall River, who accepted
his services, this being his first position in connection with a textile manu-
factory, and liere he made the plans of the No. 2 Mill in 1867. He acquired
large practical mill experience under Edward Kilburn, of Lonsdale, R. I.,
and in 1869 we find him making plans of the \Vamsutta Mill, No. 4, New
Bedford, when the Wamsutta was under the management of Thomas
Bennett. Here he was occupied over a year.
At about this time, Mr. Sheldon designed the first automatic machine
screw-threading machine for the American Screw Companj', which was
patented and adopted for general use in their mills, effecting a very large
saving in labor. Mr. Sheldon also secured an English patent on the
machine and sold it to an English Screw Company.
In 1870 Mr. Sheldon established himself in business in Providence as
384 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
a mill engineer. In 1903, his son, Arthur Noyes Sheldon, was admitted
to partnership, and in 1907 Frank Lawrence Sheldon, his second son, was
admitted to the firm, the style being F. P. Sheldon & Sons. From 1870 Mr.
Sheldon gave his entire time to the business of mill engineering, including
steam, hydraulic, electrical, and general industrial engineering, and installed
and reorganized several hundreds of the most prominent textile establish-
ments in the country, among which were such well-known concerns as the
Wamsutta Mills, Pierce Manufacturing Corporation, Berkshire Cotton
Manufacturing Company, Grinnell Manufacturing Corporation, Dartmouth
Manufacturing Corporation, Draper Company, Pacific Mills, Arnold Print
Works, Lonsdale Company, Ponemah Mills, Lorraine Manufacturing Co.,
Grosvernor-Dale Company, Manville Company, West Boylston Mfg. Co.,
Baltic Mills, Potomska Mills, Brookside Mills, Erwin Cotton Mills, Otis
Company, Acushnet, Hathaway, Warwick Mills, Page Mfg. Co., Joseph
Benn & Sons, Lawton Spinning Co., besides many plants in other lines of
industry, including Gorham's Silver Works, and a large number of Electric
Power Stations. He was also frequently called upon to make reports on
industrial plants for reorganization and valuation.
In 1900 Mr. Sheldon was appointed director of textiles to the United
States Commission of the Paris Exposition, being selected to that position
by W. B. Plunkett (a personal friend of President McKinley) an appoint-
ment which was unqualifiedly endorsed by Senators Aldrich and Wetmore,
Governor Dyer, of Rhode Island, William H. Bent, president of the Ark-
wright Club, of Boston, S. N. D. North, treasurer of the National Woolen
Manufacturers' Association, General William F. Draper, and the heads
of several of the leading textile manufactories in New England. Mr.
Sheldon was also a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engi-
neers, and of the National Cotton Manufacturers' Association.
In 1877, Mr. Sheldon married Nellie Noyes, by whom he had three
children: Arthur Noyes. Bertha Louise and Frank Lawrence. Mrs. Sheldon
died in 1883. Mr. Sheldon married (second) in 1892, Mary Elizabeth,
daughter of Sumner White and Mary (Leonard) Lincoln, of Norton, Mass.
HOWARD STOCKTON.
Howard Stockton was born in Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 15, 1842; son
and only child of Philip Augustus and Mary Ann (Remington) Stockton;
grandson of Lucius Whitman and Eliza Augusta (Coxe) Stockton; great-
grandson of Judge John and Abigail (Phillips) Stockton; great-grandson
of Richard and Susanna (Robinson) Stockton and great-third-grandson
of Richard and Abigail Stockton who came from England to America and
OF THE UNITED STATES 385
was a freeholder in Flushing, Long Island, N. Y., about the year 1656, and
with his son, Richard, removed to Burlington County, N. J., Richard, Jr.,
becoming a resident of Stony Brook (near Princeton), N. J. Philip
Augustus Stockton was a lieutenant in the U. S. Army and consul-general
to Saxony.
The subject of this sketch, Howard Stockton, attended a private school
in Newport, R. I., and the Royal Saxon Polytechnic, Dresden, Saxony,
from which he was graduated silver medallist in 1862. On returning to the
United States, he entered the volunteer service June 9, 1862, as aide-de-
camp with the rank of captain. On March 17, 1864, he was made first
lieutenant in the Third Rhode Island Cavalry and May 23, 1864, second
lieutenant in the Ordnance Corps U. S. A. and was brevetted first lieutenant
and captain U. S. A. September 14, 1866. He was promoted to the rank of
first lieutenant. Ordnance Corps, U. S. A. May 13, 1867. He resigned
from the army January, 1871, and was admitted to the bar September 20,
1871, opening practice in Boston.
Howard Stockton was largely interested in the manufacture of cotton
and was treasurer of the Cocheco Manufacturing Co., Dover, N. H.,
1876-87; treasurer of the Salmon Falls Manufacturing Company, Salmon
Falls, N. H., 1880-87.; treasurer of the Merrimack Manufacturing Com-
pany, Lowell, Mass., 1889-1900, and treasurer of the Essex Company con-
trolling the water power at Lawrence, Mass., 1882. He was president of
the Nashua Manufacturing Company, Nashua, N. H., from 1897 to 1909;
president of the Jackson Co., Nashua, N. H., from 1897 to 1909; president
of the American Bell Telephone Company 1887-89; actuary of the Massa-
chusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company 1901 ; director of the Merchants'
and old Boston National Bank ; of the City Trust Company and of the Bos-
ton Manufacturers' Mutual Insurance Company ; vice-president and di-
rector of the Old Colony R. R. Co. ; vice-president of the American
Mutual Liability Insurance Company ; vice-president of the Boston Athen-
£eum, trustee of severaj large estates and a member of the executive com-
mittee of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He was for many years a vestryman of St. Paul's Church, Boston ; a mem-
ber of the Standing Commi'ttee of the Diocese of Massachusetts 1890, and
delegate to the Diocesan Convention from 1888 to 1892.
Mr. Stockton married, at Boston, Mass., Jan. 6, 1870, Mary, daughter
of Rev. S. Charles Mason and Susan, daughter of Amos Lawrence, grand-
daughter of Jeremiah and Mary (Means) Mason, and of Amos and Sarah
(Richard) Lawrence and a descendant in the eighth generation from
John Mason, the hero of the Pequot War, 1637, and of John Lawrence, of
Watertown, Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1630. Their children were : Law-
rence Mason Stockton, born in Springfield, Mass.. Feb. 18, 1871 ; Harvard
1891, Harvard Law School 1894, law firm Stimson & Stockton: director
N. E. Trust Co., clerk Essex Company, Boston; City Councilman 1888-89,
386 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
court tennis champion of the United States. Mary Remington, born at
Brookhne, Mass., May lo, 1872, married, October 4, 1903, William Amory
(second) ; Philip Stockton, born at Brookline, Mass., March 20, 1874
(q. v.); Ethel born at Beverly, Mass., September 2, 1876; Eleanor born
at Milton, Mass., Aug. 25, 1878; Jane Mason, born at Boston, Mass., Nov.
2j, 1880; Howard, Jr., born at Boston, Mass., Dec. 18, 1883, Harvard
1905. Mrs. Stockton died at Wareham, Mass., July 27, 1886.
CHARLES T. MAIN.
Charles Thomas Main was born in Marblehead, Mass., Feb. 16, 1856,
son of Thomas, Jr., and Cordelia (Reed) Main; grandson of Thomas and
Deborah (Phillips) Main, and of Lemuel Fish and Eunice (Holmes) Reed,
and a descendant of Rev. George Phillips, who with his wife and two
children left Boxted, Essex, England, April 12, 1630, and embarking on the
"Arabella," reached Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony, the June 12th fol-
lowing, and became the first minister of Watertown. Through his grand-
mother, Deborah (Phillips) Main, the subject of this sketch was connected
with that family of which \\'endell Phillips (1811-1884) was a member.
Thomas Main, Jr., was a machinist and engineer in Marblehead, where
Charles Thomas attended the public schools and under a private tutor was
prepared for matriculation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
where he was graduated S. B. 1876. He remained at the Technology
Institute as an assistant instructor for three years, 1876-79, and then
became draughtsman for the Manchester Mills, Manchester, N. H., in
1879; engineer for the Lower Pacific Mills, Lawrence, Mass., 1880-85,
having charge of the reorganization of the plant ; assistant superintendent,
1885; and superintendent, 1886-91. After 1891 he engaged in general
engineering work, his present (1911) office being at 201 Devonshire Street,
Boston.
Mr. Main's professional reputation secured for him membership in the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Society of Civil
Engineers, the National Cotton Manufacturers' Association and in the
Boston Society of Civil Engineers. While residing in Lawrence, he served
as alderman of the city 1888-89-90, and a member of the school committee
and trustee of the public library, 1891, and in Winchester served as a
member of the Water Board from 1895 to 1906. In 1905 he was elected a
term member of the corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology.
Mr. Main was a member of the Exchange and Technology Clubs of
Boston, and the Calumet Club of Winchester. His published papers read
CUaa^
OF THE UNITED STATES 387
before the scientific societies, of which he was either a regular or honorary
member, covered the subjects: "Steam Power,'' "Water Power," "Mill
Construction," "Valuation of Industrial Properties," etc.
As consulting engineer for many textile corporations he built some
of the largest textile mills in the country, and many important steam
and water power plants. He invented a receiver pressure regulator for
compound engines which was widely used and he was consulted by many
cities and States in regard to problems arising from public works.
Nov. 14, 1883, Mr. Main married Elizabeth, daughter of John and
Mary (Freeto) Appleton.
OTIS PETTEE.
Otis Pettee was born in Foxboro, Mass., son of Simon Pettee, a
blacksmith and man of considerable inventive powers, who manufactured
implements of warfare for the army during the War of 1812, and while
this work was going on Otis, then sixteen years old, rendered valuable
assistance in his father's shop. He had at this time gained a good
knowledge of arithmetic at the public school, and he began to make a
special study of textile machinery, as cotton manufacturing was coming
largely into vogue in New England. He worked in cotton factories in order
to gain additional knowledge of the machinery, and he also established a
small thread factory at Foxboro. When the Elliot Manufacturing Co.
decided to equip their new cotton mills at Newton Upper Falls, Mass., in
1823, they secured the services of Mr. Pettee as superintendent of the
construction and equipment of the mill, and early in 1824 he had Mill No.
I in running order, having been obliged to inaugurate a machine shop and
manufacture a great portion of the machinery at the mill on account of
the difficulty in transporting proper machinery from Providence, then the
principal source of supply. His success as a machinist resulted in the
Elliot Manufacturing Company being called upon to supply other mills with
machinery, and in this way a regular machine works was founded and
looms and spinning machinery furnished to neighboring mills, including the
total equipment for the Jackson Cotton Mills at Nashua, New Hampshire,
in 1831, for which accomplishment Mr. Pettee was highly commended, and
the Jackson Company presented to him a service of silver inscribed with
words of appreciation. At the close of the year 1831, Mr. Pettee resigned
as superintendent of the Elliot Manufacturing Company and purchased
from that corporation the equipment of their machine works. He erected
his plant half a mile from the Elliot Cotton Mills, and on completing the
building he announced his readiness to equip cotton factories with the latest
388 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
and best machines for spinning and weaving from the opener to the loom.
By August, 1837, he had added to his plant a complete iron foundry, and
was thus independent of other machine shops for supplies of castings, etc.
In 1837 his principal workshop was a three-story building 365 feet long.
He lost his plant by fire in 1839, saving only the contents of his foundry
and pattern storehouse. Fire had destroyed property valued at $100,000,
and his insurance was small. However, he rebuilt within a period of six
weeks' time and had new and better machinery. His orders came from
mills being equipped in all parts of the United States and in Mexico and
California.
His sons, Otis and George Pettee, were instructed in the business
and became practical machinists, and when Mr. Pettee died in 1853 the
sons with Henry Billings succeeded to the business, which they carried on
under the firm name of Otis Pettee & Co. Mr. Pettee was a temperance
and anti-slavery advocate, and he was a foremost worker in benevolent
and social reforms. He discouraged the use of tobacco in every form,
was a free-soiler in political faith and was made by that party a delegate
to the National Liberty Convention held in Buffalo, N. Y., Oct. 7, 1847.
He died at his home in Newton Upper Falls, Mass., Feb. 12, 1853.
FRANCIS WINTHROP DEAN.
Francis Winthrop Dean, born in Taunton, Bristol County, Mass.,
May 24, 1852, was the son of Samuel Augustus and Charity Williams
(Washburn) Dean, and grandson of Robert and Sarah S. L. (Padelford)
Dean, and Cromwell and Elizabeth f Storm) Washburn. For more than
two centuries, or since 1637, when Walter Dean emigrated from Taunton,
England, to America and settled in Taunton, Mass., that town has been
the home of the Dean family. Samuel A. Dean was a well-to-do farmer,
and his son, therefore, had many educational advantages. Subsequent to
his graduation from the Taunton High School, Frauds W. Dean entered
the Lawrence Scientific School, of Harvard University, and in 1873 re-
ceived therefrom the degree of Bachelor of Science, Magna Cimi Laude. In
1874, he became instructor, and in 1875 tutor in engineering in the
Lawrence Scientific School, and was thus engaged until 1882.
In 1882 Mr. Dean entered the employ of Erasmus Darwin Leavitt,
the eminent mechanical engineer, with whom he was associated until the
fall of 1889, serving as special assistant, inspector, and chief draftsman.
In 1889 he opened an office in Boston as mechanical engineer, and in 1893
Mr. Charles T. Main joined him, forming the firm of Dean & Main, Mill
£!i-j-sys-{^ im.Lmxs ssi=.~.vy
OF THE UNITED STATES 389
Engineers and Architects. On January i, 1907, this firm was dissolved,
after which time Mr. Dean followed the same business.
Air. Dean was not a man of multifarious business interests, devoting
almost his entire time and effort to his engineering practice. He was Sewer
and Water Commissioner of Lexington, Mass., a member of the Exchange
Club, Boston, the Harvard Union, Cambridge, the Harvard Club, New
York, and the Engineers' Club, New York, also of the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers, the Boston Society of Civil Engineers, the New
England Water Works Association, and was for some time a member of
the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, of England. Also a member of
the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers.
March 8, 1893, Mr. Dean married Lydia C. H. Cushing and had two
children, Samuel Winthrop, born August 29, 1897, and Francis Hale, born
January 9, 1899.
WILLIAM MASON.
William Mason was born in Mystic, Conn., in 1808. His father was
a blacksmith, who conducted also a small farm. William Mason attended
the district school four months of each year, and the remaining eight
months assisted his father in the shop and on the fami. He early evinced
mechanical ability which he employed in constructing toys out of wood,
jewsharps, skates, sleds and also musical instruments. When thirteen
years old he was sent by his parents to work in a small cotton mill in
Canterbur}\ \\''indham County, Conn. ; he was employed in the spinning-
room for about four years, and while there he constructed a "hurd)'-gurdy,"
which he always retained as an example of his boyish genius. He then
went to Lisbon, Conn., to work in a cotton-thread factory, and during the
year he was there he was the only machinist in the place able to repair
the complicated machinery used in the mill. He was then only seventeen
years old, and his fame as a skilled workman and ingenious mechanic went
before him to East Haddam, where a mill to spin thread was being put
up, and he was sent for to start the machinery in motion. This experience
induced him to learn the details of machine work, and for that purpose he
returned to Canterbury, taking a three years' course as apprentice in the
machine shop connected with the cotton mill. In 1826 he obtained work in
a machine shop at New Hartford. N. Y., where he worked for a financially
embarrassed concern for about six months, when he returned to Canter-
bury to his old employer, and his first mechanical achievement was finish-
ing and setting up a power loom for weaving diaper linen, the first power
loom used for that purpose in the United States. He also constructed a
loom for weaving damask tablecloths, in which the figures of the middle
390 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
and borders were interwoven. His employer failed soon after and his
loom was not continued in use. He then took up portrait painting in oil,
but was soon back to the machine shop, as in 1832 he received an order
from John Hyde, of Mystic, to construct diaper looms, and Mr. Hyde
advanced him money on his contract to enable him to set up business on
his own account in a frame maker's shop in Willimantic, Conn.
His successful completion of this contract led to an engagement with
Ansell Lanphear, of Killingly, Conn., and in his machine shop Mr. Mason
undertook the construction of the ring and traveller, or ring-frame, the in-
vention of John Thorp, of Providence, R. I., patented Dec. 31, 1828, but up
to this time no one had been found able to carry out the inventor's plans.
Mr. Lanphear failed, and the youthful machinist took charge of the shop in
the interest of the creditors, they agreeing to give him a percentage on the
business. He improved on Thorp's ring-traveller, remodeled and per-
fected the "ring" and designed a new and light iron frame, which gave
evidence of his ingenuity and skill. The successive failures of his prede-
cessors prejudiced mill men against this invention, and the ring traveller
that came into universal use after a time was at first unwelcomed. After
working in Killingly for two years, he was induced in 1836 by Crocker &
Richmond, of Taunton, Mass., cotton-machinery manufacturers, to transfer
his ring-frame work to their establishment, and in the financial crisis of
1837, the failure of the firm — owing him a large amount — made another
change in his business connections, and when Leach & Keith took possession
of the old machine shop he was employed as foreman, and the firm made
his newly-patented "speeder" or "roving machine" a specialty.
Meanwhile, in his intervals of leisure, Mr. Green had been indus-
triously working on the "self-acting mule," which eventually proved to be
the most important invention of his life. He. received a patent for this ma-
chine Oct. 8, 1840. He encountered great opposition in the "Scotch mule,"
introduced in the United States about the same time, and the next year the
"Roberts and Sharp mule," imported by Major Bradford Durfee, and pat-
ented in the United States, Oct. 11, 1841, proved a formidable rival. As
this machine proved in some respects superior to the one invented by Mr.
Mason, that persistent machinist, quite undaunted by these setbacks, set
about making an entirely new model, which was completed in 1842, and for
which he received a patent Oct. 3, 1846. This latest machine became known
as Mason's self-acting mule."
About this time disaster again overtook him in a protracted illness
and the failure of Leach & Keith, through which he lost a large
amount. On recovering his health, he was enabled, through the financial
help of James K. Mills & Co., cotton commission merchants, of Boston,
to purchase the machine shop of Leach & Keith, and it was opened
propitiously in 1842 under his sole management. During the summer of
1845 he completely remodeled the entire plant, removing it to a better
OF THE UNITED STATES 39i
location, he erected new buildings, conveniently arranged and planned to
eventually cover an area of ten acres, making it the largest and most com-
plete cotton machinery works in the United States. His business, prin-
cipally the manufacture of his self-acting mule, was so successful that
when his new plant was finished he was half owner and out of debt. He
added to the business of making cotton machinery that of machinery for
the manufacture of woolen goods. He also produced printing-presses,
machinists' tools, blowers, cupola- furnaces, gearing and shafting. In
1852 Mr. Mason devised the model for a new locomotive, and in 1853 pro-
duced a completed engine, differing in radical form from the English
model introduced by Horatio Allen, of New York, and followed by Matthias
W. Baldwin, of Philadelphia, and Thomas Rogers, of Paterson, N. J.,
pioneer engine builders in the United States, in 1830, 1832 and 1837 re-
spectively. The Mason locomotive excelled in workmanship, taste and
beauty of form all of its predecessors, and they gradually adopted his
improvements. In 1852 he had erected additional buildings to accommodate
this new industry in which he vigorously engaged. The failure of James
K. Mills & Co., of Boston, his equal partners in the mill-machinery and
locomotive works, compelled the machine works to suspend payments, and
Mr. Mason was again compelled to start anew. This time he did it on
his own account, and, after becoming solidly established, he equipped a
foundry for the manufacture of car-wheels, which he made with hollow
or tubular spokes to insure more strength and to conform with the driving
wheels used on his locomotives. In 1861' he added to his plant an arsenal
equipped with machinery, much of which he invented and made, for the
manufacture of muskets for the United States army, and he soon began
to turn out 600 Springfield rifled muskets a week. This gave him, during
the progress of the Civil War. 1861-65, five branches of business, running
at full capacity, cotton machinery, woolen machinery, locomotives, car-
wheels and firearms, besides miscellaneous machine work. The return
of peace closed the arsenal, and soon after the manufacture of woolen
machinery was stopped. In 1873 the business was organized as the Mason
Machine Works, for a history of which see article in this work under that
title. Mr. Mason died in Taunton, Mass., May, 1883.
392 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
DWIGHT SEABURY.
Dwight Seabury, born in Providence, R. I., Feb. 14, 1863, was
the son of Frederick Niles and Catharine Ameha (Wheaton) Seabury;
grandson of Captain George Briggs and Patience (Thurston) Seabury,
and a descendant of John Seabury, of Porloke, Devonshire, England, who
came to and settled in Boston during 1630. Frederick Niles Seabury was
a prominent dentist in Providence, R. I. ; president of the American
Academy of Dental Science of Boston, and member of the New York
Odontological and New York State Dental Societies and American Dental
Association, and his father was a mechanical engineer and a veteran of
the War of 1812. The subject of this sketch received his elementary edu-
cation at Mowry & Goff's School, Providence, which was followed by a
course at the Providence High School and Schofield's Commercial College,
of the same city. In 1881 he entered the mill engineering office of Thomp-
son & Nagle and served an apprenticeship of three years, at the expira-
tion of which term he went with Mr. David M. Thompson, as his assistant,
to the employ of B. B. & R. Knight, Providence, R. I., assisting in the
reorganization of the Natick Mills, Arctic Mills and Pontiac Alills. His
next position was with Mr. Frank P. Sheldon, mill engineer. Providence,
in whose employ he remained for nine years. In September, 1896, Mr.
Seabury established himself in business in Pawtucket, R. I., and among
the buildings that he designed and reorganized are included : five different
mills of the Royal Weaving Company, Pawtucket, R. I.; the Brighton
Mills, Passaic, N. J.; Solway Dyeing & Textile Co., Pawtucket; Tamarack
Company, Pawtucket ; Penikees Mills, \'alley Falls, R. I. ; Portland Silk
Company, Middletown. Conn.; Lumb Knitting Company, Pawtucket; E.
Jenckes Manufacturing Company, Pawtucket ; Jenckes Spinning Company,
Pawtucket ; D. Goff & Sons, Pawtucket ; Burlington Silk Mills, Burlington,
N. J. ; Fort Dummer Mills, Brattleboro, Vt. ; Pawtucket Electric Co., Paw-
tucket ; Waite-Thresher Company, Providence ; Improved Seamless Wire
Company, Providence ; Geo. W. Parks Company's Building, Providence ;
A. T. Atherton Machine Company, Pawtucket ; Nockage Mills, Fitchburg ;
Orswell Mills, Fitchburg, and the Ponikin Mills, Lancaster, Mass. ; Ameri-
can Textile Company, Pawtucket; Union Wadding Company, Pawtucket;
Matteawan ^Manufacturing Company, Matteawan, N. Y. ; Reiling & Schoen,
West Hoboken, N. J.
Mr. Seabury joined the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers
in 1901, and the American Society of ]\Iechanical Engineers in 1906, and
became a member of the To Kalon Club during the same year.
February 14, 1898, Mr. Seabury married Hattie Idella, daughter of
Horace Leonard and Emily Emeline (Gotha) Fisk.
'-JZ^ty^-^t^-x^Ot ^\
JAASS H LAMB Ce
OF THE UNITED STATES 393
HERBERT EDWARD WALAISLEY.
Herbert Edward Walmsley was born in Manchester, England, in
1855. His father, Francis H. Walmsley, was a leading physician and
publicist, and Herbert Edward Walmsley was provided with an excellent
education, acquired at the best school in his native city; and, wishing to
enter mercantile life, according to the custom of the place, was apprenticed
at an early age to acquire the business of manufacturing cotton yarns and
cloth. He thoroughly mastered the details of the mill, and when twenty-
two years old accepted the management of a large cotton mill in Russia.
remaining in that position for about eleven years. He then accepted a
similar position in a mill in India, but in the climate of that warm country
he found that his previous excellent health was being impaired, and he
left India before completing his first year's service, and in 1887 came to
the United States to accept the position of manager of the extensive Clark
Thread Works at Newark, N. J. The reputation he gained there during
ten years' service as a broad-minded and entirely competent mill manager,
thoroughly informed in all the details and methods of manufacturing raw
cotton into the various threads, yarns and fabrics to which it is adapted,
and satisfactorily proving his great executive ability in conducting the
affairs of the largest establishment, had attracted the attention of the cot-
ton manufacturers of the United States. Mr. W. W. Crapo, president of
the Wamsutta Mills, the pioneer cotton factory of New Bedford, Mass.,
one which had acquired a world-wide fame for the superior quality of its
product, finding constant use for 230,000 spindles, 4,450 looms, 2,100 hands
and a capital of $3,000,000 paying large dividends, saw in Mr. Walmsley
the man he needed to meet the demands not only for the class of goods
the seven mills were turning out, but to add to the establishment every
improvement possible, so as to maintain that supremacy, and secured his
services as agent in 1897. He was twice elected president of the New
England Cotton Manufacturers' Association, and on various occasions he
addressed that body upon the subjects of "Industrial Institutes — Their
Organization and Regulations;" '."Industrial Unity;" "Manufacture of Fine
Yarns;" "Preparations for Mill Management;" "Relations of Employers
and Employees in Cotton Mills;" "Rope Driving;" besides his annual in-
augural and semi-annual addresses. In 1904 he was a member of the In-
ternational Jury of Awards in the Department of Textiles at the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition at St. Louis. He was also a member of the Board of
Government of the New Bedford Textile School, having declined the presi-
dency of the institution. His book on cotton spinning and weaving passed
through several English editions, and was translated into the Russian
language.
394 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
THEOPHILUS PARSONS.
Theophilus Parsons was born in Brookline, Mass., July i, 1849; son
of Tlionias and Martha (Franklin) Parsons; grandson of Charles Chauncy
and Judith Parsons and Henry Paine and Charlotte Bicknell Franklin;
great-grandson of Judge Theophilus and Elizabeth (Greenleaf) Parsons.
Theophilus Parsons was trained for college at preparatory schools
in Brookline, including the Brookline High School ; was graduated from
Harvard, A. B., in 1870, and the following October began his career as
a manufacturer of cotton in the Lyman Mills, Holyoke, Mass., where he
was a student in the textile industry up to November, 1872, when he
continued his studies in the large European manufactories. He was
agent of the Pocasset Manufacturing Company, Fall River, Mass., from
January i, 1880, to September, 1880, when he accepted a similar position
with the Lyman Mills, Holyoke, and on October i, 1884, he was elected
treasurer of that corporation, with his office in the Exchange Building,
Boston. Mr. Parsons was elected president of the Arkwright Club in
1900, and in 1910 resigned that position, his successor being F. C. Dumane,
treasurer of the Amoskeag Mfg. Co.
Mr. Parsons was married August 15, 1894, to Mary Mason, daughter
of Dr. F. Oliver. They had one child, Susan Lawrence Parsons, born
July 28, 1895. Mrs. Mary Mason (Oliver) Parsons died in Boston, Mass.,
October 25, 1895.
THEOPHILUS KING.
Theophilus King was born in Rochester, Plymouth County, Mass.,
Dec. 14, 1844; son of Theophilus and Mary (E.) King. His ma-
ternal Pilgrim ancestors, from whom he was of the eighth generation,
were John Howland and Elizabeth Tillery, both passengers of the May-
flower, 1620, who were married in Plymouth Colony, the first marriage
ceremony performed by the Pilgrims on American soil. John Howland
was the last survivor, living in Plymouth, of the historic band that founded
the colony in 1620.
Theophilus King attended the public school and academy at Rochester,
and his first experience in business was gained on his father's farm and
in his store in Rochester. He also had experience as post-office clerk, in-
surance clerk and assistant town-clerk, as well as assisting in looking after
a saw mill, in all of which enterprises his father was the head. He began
to trade in furs and to raise potatoes on his own account when thirteen
years old, and when he was fifteen he owned a sixty-fourth part of the
whaler "Admiral Blake," paid for out of his own earnings. He sold his
F:VG S^'JTi? ?.<ILLl'-MS SS,^f7Nr~
/(i2^c/2a-2^
JAMES frX,.'fMB C.J
OF THE UNITED STATES 395
interest in the whaler for a fair profit, after holding it over one year,
and in i860 he went to Boston, where he had neither friends nor in-
fluence and found employment in the leather store of Johnson & Thompson
as clerk, remaining with the firm until he was twenty-four years old and
until he had gained a practical knowledge of the leather business. He
then formed a partnership with Charles B. Bryant, and the leather firm of
Bryant & King prospered up to the time of the great fire of 1872, when
they lost their property in Boston by fire. Later their factories at Clinton,
Mass., were destroyed by flood, in 1876, and the firm suspended, paying
their creditors seventy cents on the dollar. Six years later the firm volun-
tarily paid every creditor the entire balance of their claims with interest
at six per cent. The disaster did not deter the firm, and they continued
the business up to 1887, when it was transferred to a company. Mr. King
engaged in new business ventures and in diversified manufacturing inter-
ests, in which he was eminently successful as a director, trustee, assignee,
receiver and banker, and soon gained a prominent position in both the
manufacturing and financial world. His interest in the cotton manu-
facturing business included an activity which was most largely influential
in creating the Colored Cotton Mill Co., Limited, of Canada, embracing
the seven principal colored cotton mills of the Dominion in which he was a
director. He also became president and a director of the Dallas Cotton
Mills, Dallas, Texas ; and treasurer of the Summit Thread Company, of
Boston, and East Hampton, Conn. ; the president of the Lawrence Duck
Company, Lawrence, Mass. ; treasurer; and director of the Abington Mills
(cotton), Huntsville, Ala., and of the cotton commission concern of Wm.
L. Barrall Co. He was also vice-president of the National Bank of Re-
demption for many years, president of the Tidewater Coal and Coke Com-
pany, and of the Quincy Quarries Company; incorporator and treasurer
of the Riverside Worsted Mills, the Atlantic Mills, of Providence, R. L,
and the Eureka Silk Manufacturing Company, of which he became presi-
dent. These three corporations represented an aggregate capital of $3,126,-
000, employed 4,500 persons, and did an annual business of over $7,000,000.
Mr. King was an advocate of outdoor life, a zealous and expert base-
ball player in his youth, and, later in life, equally expert at golf. He was
an active worker in church and temperance Work, a member of the Re-
form Club, of New York City, and in the Cachato Club, of Braintree,
Mass., Boston City Club, and of golf and other athletic clubs and associa-
tions.
Mr. King married, Dec. 31, 1873, Helen L., daughter of James
and Mary Ann Baxter, of Quincy, Mass., and their children were Delce-
vare and Zayma King.
396 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
ARTHUR HOUGHTON LOWE.
Arthur Houghton Lowe was born in Rindge, Cheshire County, New
Hampshire, August 20, 1853. He was one of the seventeen children of
John and Sarah (Mead) Lowe, grandson of David I-owe and a descendant
of Thomas Lowe, who came from England about the year 1630 and set-
tled in Ipswich, Massachusetts Bay Colony. Arthur Houghton Lowe
spent his early life in Fitchburg, Worcester County, Mass., where he at-
tended the public schools. When quite young, he left school to join in
the provision and produce business conducted by his father and older
brothers, and on reaching his majority he became a partner in the firm
of Lowe Brothers & Company.
In 1879, with John Parkhill and Thomas R. B. Dole, Mr. Lowe formed
the Parkhill Manufacturing Company, for the manufacture of fine ging-
hams. He managed the business of the little mill, which, at its inception,
had only thirty looms, but which grew to be one of the largest of its kind
in the country. Of this corporation he was elected treasurer and manager.
In 1885 he organized the Cleghorn Mills Company, which enterprise con-
tributed greatly to the building up of the Daniels District of the City of
Fitchburg, for within six years this section contained two hundred houses,
a church, schoolhouse and five large factories, including the Orswell and
the Mitchell Mills, which came into existence and grew rapidly through
his personal efiforts and enterprise. The Cleghorn Mills were absorbed by
the Parkhill Manufacturing Company in 1889.
Mr. Lowe also organized and became treasurer of the Lowe jManu-
facturing Company, of Huntsville, Ala., and was a partner in the com-
mission firm of J. Harper Poor & Co., of New York City. He likewise
was a director of the Fitchburg National Bank, the Fitchburg ]\Iutual Fire
Insurance Company, Mutual Insurance Companies of Boston, the Street
Railway Company, the Fitchburg Steam Engine Company, and of the
Grant Yarn Company, and was trustee of the Fitchburg Savings Bank,
Gushing Academy, State Trustee of Baldwinsville Hospital for Children
and trustee of the Murdock School at Winchendon. He served as director
of the Park Club, and was also a member of the Fitchburg Athletic Club.
Mr. Lowe was an alderman of the city of Fitchburg in 1888, presi-
dent of the Board of Trade in 1891 and 1892, and mayor in 1893, and
served the Commonwealth of Alassachusetts as a member of the Governor's
Council in 1903 and 1904. He was largely responsible for the location
of the extensive car shops of the Fitchburg Railway Company in the
southern part of the city in 1888, at a time when several other cities on
the route were working strenuously to secure the advantages the plant
afforded to the place in which it should be located.
;Mr. Lowe married, Dec. 11, 1878, Miss Annie E. Parkhill, and
had three children — Russell B., Margaret, and Rachael P. Lowe.
OF THE UNITED STATES 397
WILLIAM H. JENNINGS.
William H. Jennings was born in Fall River, Mass., Feb. 20,
183 1 ; son of Edward and Betsey (Palmer) Jennings, and a descendant
of John Jennings, who came to America from England in 1720. William H.
Jennings was educated at the public schools of Fall River and at a private
school; and when thirteen years old he entered the grocery store of C. H.
Greene, and later was with Gray & Brownell, and R. S. Gibbs & Co. He
went from the mercantile business into that of railroading, and adjusted
land and other damages existing between the Old Colony Railroad and
owners of property through which the railroad passed in the process of its
extension to Newport, R. I.
In 1866 Mr. Jennings organized the Merchants' Manufacturing Com-
pany, became treasurer and clerk of the corporation, and raised the money
that placed its capital stock at $800,000 in the short space of two days ;
and a charter was obtained Nov. 2, 1866, with James Henry, W. H.
Jennings, Augustus Chace, L. L. Barnard, Richard S. Gibbs, Charles H.
Dean, Crawford E. Lindsey, Robert Remington and Lafayette Nichols as
directors, James Henry being elected the first president of the corpora-
tion. Mr. Jennings remained with the company as treasurer and agent
and carried on the business successfully from the completion of the largest
cotton mill building under one roof in Fall River, its equipment with the
best machinery then obtainable, and the production of a superior quality
of print cloths, which found a ready and profitable market; resigning his
position in 1882, after eighteen years devoted almost exclusively to its
manifold interests.
With Stephen Davol, John D. Flint, Lloyd S. Earle, Walter C. Durfee
and Dr. Robert T. Davis he arranged for the incorporation of the Wam-
panoag Cotton Mills and invited subscriptions to its stock, and between
May 23, 1871, the time of the organization, and May 31 following, $400,-
000 had been subscribed, and he served the corporation as a director up
to the time of his death. He waS one of the founders and charter directors
of the Flint Mills, organized in February, 1872, with a capital of $500,-
000, and was also a member of its board of directors. Oct. 14, 1873,
his efforts greatly aided those of Louis L. Barnard, Stephen Davol and
Nathaniel Borden in organizing the Barnard Manufacturing Company
with a capital of $330,000, and he was a member of its first board of direc-
tors and served as the second president of the corporation, 1880-85.
His next eflfort in the direction of cotton mill promotion was in April,
1881, when, in co-operation with Dr. Robert T. Davis, Frank S. Stevens,
Arnold B. San ford and others, he caused the incorporation of the Globe
Yarn Mills, April 16, 1881, and was prevailed upon to accept the presi-
dency of the corporation, which, starting with a capital of $175,000, under
his inspiration the capital was increased to $200,000; in October, 1881, to
398 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
$356,000, and in 1885 to $600,000, in order to build Mill No. 2. Mr.
Jennings was also a large stockholder and president of the Globe Street
Railway Company, a director of the Crystal Spring Bleaching & Dyeing
Company, the Manufacturers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company and the
Metacomet National Bank. His real estate holdings, in co-operation with
Dr. Robert T. Davis and Frank S. Stevens, included a large tract of land
west of Broadway, Fall River, on which the Globe Yarn Mills, the Laurel
Lake and Sanford Spinning Mills and the Algonquin Printing Company's
plants were erected.
Mr. Jennings was a. Republican member of the Common Council,
1856, 1858 and 1859, and president of that body in 1859. He was affiliated
with the Central Congregational Church, of Fall River, and a member of
the building committee which erected its new edifice in 1874.
Mr. Jennings married, Dec. 24, 1863, Annie Borden Chase, of
Portsmouth, R. L They had four children, of whom Charles J. died
March 31, 1877; Edward B. Jennings became president of the Algonquin
Printing Company 1890-96, treasurer of the Globe Yarn Mills from Oc-
tober, 1896, treasurer of the Samoset Company of Valley Falls, R. L,
agent of the Allen Print Works of Providence, R. L, president of the
Merchants' Manufacturing Company as successor of James M. Osborn,
and a director of all these corporations, and of the Wampanoag Mills, the
Sanford Spinning Company and the Stevens Manufacturing Company;
William H.- Jennings, Jr., treasurer of the Webster Loom Harness Co.
and treasurer of the Algonquin Printing Company ; and Annie J., mar-
ried Arthur Anthony.
William H. Jennings died at his home. Fall River, Mass., in 1885.
WALTER EDWARD PARKER.
Walter Edward Parker was born in Princeton, Worcester County,
Mass., Sept. 27, 1847; son of George and Emily R. (Coller) Parker;
grandson of Ebenezer Parker, a farmer of Princeton, and of Hezekiah
Coller, a Methodist preacher of Northfield, Mass., and a descendant of
Thomas Parker, a farmer who embarked at London, England, March 11,
1635, with Sir Richard Saltonstall. with whose family he was connected
by marriage. Captain John Parker, who led a company of farmers in
the Battle of Lexington, 1775, and Theodore Parker, the eminent preacher,
were of this family. George Parker was a farmer and manufacturer of
textile goods, and his son, Walter Edward Parker, was brought up in
Princeton, Mass. ; Urbana, 111., and Woonsocket, R. I. He attended the
public schools, became a clerk in a grocery store in Woonsocket, R. I., and
in the Social Cotton Mill. He subsequently in 1876 accepted the super-
■ -fv "> ■>- f'-^Zl/A-ifS 3BF.O Ny
Y^l^/C^^,^
OF THE UNITED STATES 399
intendency of the Globe Mills, owned by the Social Manufacturing Co.,
and served until April i, 1881, when he became superintendent of the cot-
ton department of the Pacific Mills at Lawrence, Mass. This position
was relinquished by Mr. Parker in 1887 for a higher office with the same
concern, that of agent of all the mills and print works controlled by them.
Mr. Parker was an energetic and interested worker, and held offices
in many institutions, being elected trustee of the Lowell Textile School
upon its organization. He also was made a trustee of Tufts College and
chairman of the finance committee ; trustee of the Essex Savings Bank,
Lawrence : trustee of the "White Fund," Lawrence, and trustee of the
Lawrence Public Library. He served as chairman of the advisory board
of the Lawrence General Hospital, and also of the Board of License Com-
missioners of Lawrence, by appointment of Mayor Rutter. He likewise
served as president of the Lawrence City Mission, of the Essex Savings
Bank and of the Lawrence Lumber Company, and became a director of
the Merchants' National Bank, Lawrence, and of the City Manufactur-
ing Company, of New Bedford, Mass. He was made a life mem-
ber of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures
and Commerce^ London, England; of the American Society of T^Iechanical
Engineers, of the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers, serving
as president of the association, 1889-92, and of the Geographical Society
of Washington, D. C. He was admitted a member of the Boston Society
of Civil Engineers and of the Society of Arts, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and became a founder and second president of the Textile
Club. He was elected alternate delegate to the Chicago Convention that
nominated Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, and delegate to the Republican
Convention four years later when William H. Taft was nominated for
president. June 14, 1902, the degree of M. A. was conferred upon him
by Tufts College.
In 1877 Mr. Parker married (first) Alida C, daughter of Rev. John
Howard Willis, and had one child, Helen Parker Hamilton. Jan. i,
1888, he married (second) Mary Bradley Beetle.
OLIVER H. MOULTON.
Oliver H. Moulton was born at Dover, N. H., Oct. 31, 1829, and
was the son of Thomas T. and Sarah (Pike) Moulton, the latter being a
daughter of Senator Benjamin Pike, of Maine.
Mr. Moulton, the subject of this sketch, spent his early life in Saco,
Maine, where he was educated in the public schools and at Saco Academy.
Completing his education, his first position was that of an apprentice to
400 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
the machinist trade, and as such he worked in Saco for six years. He
then went to the York Cotton Mills to learn the business. He also wa.?
one of the founders of the Pepperell Mills at Biddeford, Maine, where
he was associated with Mr. Stephen Everett.
In 1854 Mr. Moulton went to Lawrence, Mass., and entered the em-
ploy of the Pemberton Mills, for which concern he acted as overseer dur-
ing a period of five years. He then became superintendent of the Amos-
keag Mil! at Manchester, N. H., under Governor Straw. His next change
was made in May, 1864, when he went to Lowell and accepted the posi-
tion of superintendent and general manager of the Hamilton Manu-
facturing Company. From his early manhood Mr. Moulton was connected
with cotton manufacturing industries. In addition to his other interests,
he was a director of the Kitson Machine Company, Shaw Stocking Com-
pany, Lowell and Andover Railroad Company, president of the Lowell
Hospital Association and Lowell Central Savings Bank, and was a member
of the New England Club of Boston and The Club of Lowell.
In 1856 Mr. Moulton married Miranda O., daughter of Tristram
Jordan, a citizen of prominence at Saco, Maine. Mrs. Moulton died
Jan. 31, 1895, her husband and two out of the three children born of
this union surviving her. One of the children, May Leonard, married Mr.
Austin K. Chadwick, treasurer of the Lowell Pive Cents Savings Baillc ;
while the other, Alice Maud, became Mrs. Henry Bartlett, her husband
being superintendent of the motive power of the Boston and Maine Rail-
road Company.
WILLIAM HENRY HILL.
William Henry Hill was born in Boston, Mass., July 14, 1838. He
was the son of William Henry and Abbie F. (Remich) Hill; grandson
of James and Abigail (Hill) Hill, and a descendant through Captain James
and Eunice (Gruard) Hill, Captain Elisha and Mary (Plaisted) Hill,
Captain John and Mary (Frost) Hill, Roger and Mary (Cross) Hill, from
Peter Hill, the immigrant ancestor who was born in England, came to
this country in 1632 and settled on Richmond Island, near Cape Elizabeth,
Maine, and in 1644 leased land at Winter Harbour (subsequently Bidde-
ford Pool), and in 164S was a member of the General Court of Ligonia.
Roger Hill became a resident of Saco, Maine, in 1653, and died there in 1667,
and his son. Captain John Hill, commanded the fort erected at Saco for
the defence of the place during the King Philip War.
Captain James Hill was one of the twelve citizens elected to receive
General George Washington when he visited Portsmouth, 1789, he having
been a soldier in the American Revolution. He was one of the party who
OF THE UNITED STATES 401
went to Fort William and Mary at Portsmouth (now New Castle) on the
night of Dec. 14, 1774, and captured one hundred barrels of gun-
powder and carried it to Durham, N. H., from which place seventeen bar-
rels were carted by ox team to Charlestown, arriving so as to be dis-
tributed to Putnam's army the day before the Battle of Bunker Hill. He
also commanded a company in one of the four regiments of minute men
raised by order of the Fourth Provincial Congress, Sept. i, 1775,
for four months' service to be stationed at Portsmouth, New Castle, Kit-
tery and vicinity to defend the coast seaward, and Captain Hill's company
was ordered to Pierce's Island, Nov. 5, 1775. He also appears as
ensign on the pay-roll of a company of volunteers commanded by Colonel
John Langdon, which was with General Gates at Saratoga. His son,
James, married Abigail Hill, a descendant of the Connecticut branch of
the Hill family. Of William Henry Hill, of Boston, son of James Hill,
we learn from "Names and Sketches of the Richest Men in Massachusetts"
that he was a native of Portsmouth, Me. As a young man he came to
Boston, where he was later identified with many of the prominent business
interests of Boston. He was a pioneer and a director of the First National
Bank of Boston, a director of the Boston Wharf Co. and of the Boston and
Marine Insurance Co., president of the Boston & Bangor Steamboat Co.,
and held many other offices of trust and honor. He died in 1888.
William Henry Hill, the subject of this sketch, was graduated from
the Roxbury High School in 1855; began his business career as a clerk,
from 1855 to 1859, in the publishing house of Sanborn, Carter & Bazin
and their successors, Brown, Taggard & Chase ; became a partner in the
firm under the style of Chase, Nichols & Hill, 1859-1861 ; was a book-
seller and publisher on his own account from 1861 to 1869, and from
1869 to 1902 was an active member of the banking house of Richardson,
Hill & Company.
Aside from his banking interests Mr. Hill has had many outlets for
his energy and executive ability. In 1875, with his father, he came into
control of the Boston and Bangor Steamship Company, at a time when
its stock had a market value of one-quarter of its face value, and for
twenty-five years thereafter, as managing director, treasurer and' president,
he directed the affairs of the company and placed its business on a solid
foundation, put its stock far above par, built wharves and storehouses,
added steamers of the best modern type to its fleet, and gained a vast freight
and passenger traffic.
For a number of years Mr. Hill was president of the Assabet Manu-
facturing Company of Maynard; he was also president of the Windsor
Company, of North Adams ; of the Citizens' Gas Company, of Ouincy ;
of the Renfrew Manufacturing Company, of Adams; of the Foster's
Wharf Company, of Boston ; a director of the First National Bank, of
Boston ; the International Trust Company ; of the Boston Insurance Com-
402 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
pany ; of the Eastern Steamship Company, a director of many other com-
panies. Mr. Hill also acted as trustee of several estates, a member of
the Boston Chamber of Commerce, the Boston Stock Exchange, the Bos-
ton Real Estate Exchange, the Bostonian Society, the Bunker Hill Monu-
ment Association, the Algonquin Club, the Boston Art Club, the Boston
Athletic Association, the Boston Curling Club and the Country Club.
Mr. Hill married (first), Jan. 8, 1863, Sarah E., daughter of
William B. May, of Boston. She was bom Aug. 5, 1843 > died July 6,
1904. Mr. Hill married (second) April 26, 1906, Caroline Wright Rogers,
daughter of Charles E. and Mary J. (Williams) Rogers, a descendant of
Thomas Rogers, a passenger on the Mayflower, and of Robert Williams, the
ancestor of the Roxbury Williams family.
The children of William Henry and Sarah E. (May) Hill were
Warren May Hill, born Oct. 28, 1863; married, Oct. 7, 1891, Mary
E. Carney; Harold St. James Hill, born Nov. 9, 1865, died Aug. 10, t866:
Marion Hill, born Feb. 18, 1868; Clarence Harvey Hill, born March 12,
1870; Spencer Richardson Hill, born Dec. 6, 1871 ; married, June 7, 1890,
Elizabeth Hale ; Ernest Lawrence Hill, born Oct. 5, 1873 ! married, May 23.
1902, Annette Shaw ; died Nov. 2, 1905 ; William Henry Reginald Hill, born
Sept. 21, 1875; married, Oct. 25, 1898, Grace Whittier Thayer; Donald
Mackay Hill, born Nov. 11, 1877; married, June 11, 1902, Annie Ne&l
Turner; Barbara Hill, born Sept. 19, 1879; died Sept. 9, 1880; Philip San-
ford Hill, born Aug. 16, 1881 ; died Aug. 2, 1885; Kenneth Amory Hill,
born June 22, 1884.
WILLIAM HENRY BENT.
William Henry Bent was born in Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 2, 1839;
son of the Rev. Nathaniel Tucker and Catherine Eliza Donnison (Metcalf)
Bent; grandson of Josiah and Susanna (Tucker) Bent and of Eliab Wight
and Lydia (Stedman) Metcalf, and a descendant from John Bent, who
came from England to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638 and was an
early settler of Sudbury. His first maternal ancestor in America was
Michael Metcalf, born in Tatterford, England; came to Massachusetts
Bay Colony in 1637 and settled in Dedham. Nathaniel Tucker Bent was
a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and was connected with
the diocese of Alassachusetts, and his son, William Henry Bent, spent his
school days chiefly in Taunton and Worcester, where he attended the public
schools and took a special course of instruction in civil engineering. His
father, who in 1833 founded Grace Church, New Bedford, died in Worcester,
Mass., in November, 1856, and this event decided the son to engage in
business. He therefore entered the machinery-building establishment of
OF THE UNITED STATliS 403
William ^lason. in Taunton. The panic of 1S57 caused the business to
suspend for a time, and young Bent found work in Boston for a period
of about twenty months, when he returned to the Mason Machine Works
and remained with the concern, holding the office of treasurer from May
25, 1873. He was a director of the Machinists' National Bank of Taunton ;
of the Corr Manufacturing Company, at East Taunton, from 1895, 3"<i o^
the Nemasket Mills from 1891, the latter both- extensive cotton mills. He
served the city of Taunton as alderman for two years and as chairman of the
Commissioners of Sinking Funds for twenty years. He also served as vice-
president of the IMorton Hospital, Taunton, from its organization in 1887.
Mr. Bent belonged to the Republican party, and he was a delegate
to the Republican National Convention of 1888. He was a member of
the Union Club of Boston (1873), the Arkwright Club of Boston, of
which he was president for three years, and of the Home Market Club of
Boston, of which he was president for three years.
He married (first), June 14, 1865, Harriett Fellowes, daughter of
Charles J. and Adeline (Davis) Hendee ; she died Feb. 21, 1873, and he
was married (second), Jan. 29, 1885, to Sarah Elizabeth, daughter of
Lewis Reese and Sarah Dawes (Shepard) Chesborough, of Elizabeth, N.
j. By his first wife he had three children. Arthur Cleveland Bent, who
was born Nov. 25, 1866, became general manager of the Mason Machine
Works, of which his father was treasurer, and a member of the Board of
Aldermen in 1906. Frederick Hendee Bent, born Feb. 16, 1869, died
Jan. 14, 1897, and Charles Bent, born Feb 13, 1873, died in infancy.
HENRY G. KITTREDGE.
Henry G. Kittredge was born in Claremont, N. H., Jan. 22, 1841. His
parents were Caroline A. (Smith) and Thomas Bond Kittredge, a celebrated
physician and surgeon. His great-grandfather, Francis Kittredge, was a
surgeon in the Revolutionary War. He was a lineal descendant of the
Adams, Seymours, Spencers, Treats and Bonds, and a nephew of Dr. Ashbel
Smith, of Texas, and Judge Henry G. Smith, of the Supreme Court of Ten-
nessee. His home was with his parents in Keene, N. H., until early man-
hood, when he went to his grandparents in Hartford, Conn., where he fin-
ished his education.
Mr. Kittredge began his business career in a woolen mill, located at
Biddeford, Me., and at the early age of twenty-one years he became
superintendent of a fancy cassimere manufactory in IVIassachusetts. and
was later appointed agent of a Maine corporation. He subsequently pur-
chased a mill in Massachusetts, and started a wool and cotton business.
404 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Having spent some time in scientifically studying the cotton fibre, Mr.
Kittredge was thoroughly familiar with this line of work, being greatly
assisted by his knowledge of the use of the microscope, in which he was
a recognized expert-
Combining his literary ability with his knowledge of textile matters,
Mr. Kittredge in 1887 began to write on the economic and practical sides
of textile manufacturing, and during the remainder of his life was engaged
as editor of textile publications and contributor to magazine and technical
journals. He became associated with the Textile World Record, of
Boston, and later was connected with the editorial staff of the Neiv York
Commercial, which position he subsequently relinquished to become one
of the founders of the Textile American. In May, 1907, he was appointed
editor of Cotton, a monthly publication, and the only one known that
gives exclusive attention to cotton manufacturing in all of its branches.
In addition to his many contributions to magazines and textile journals,
Mr. Kittredge read several papers before cotton manufacturers' associa-
tions. In 1905 he received the medal of the New England, now National,
Cotton Manufacturers' Association, for a paper on the "Economic Exten-
sion of Cotton Cultivation in the South."
Mr. Kittredge was personally acquainted with hundreds of American
millowners, and was always interested in anything that pertained to the
upbuilding of the textile industry. He organized the American Textile
Exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893,
serving as chairman of one of its committees. In 1895 he was chosen by
the governor of Massachusetts to represent the Commonwealth at the
Atlantic Exposition, together with the Hon. Curtis Guild, Jr., and the Hon.
William C. Lovering. Mr. Kittredge was also responsible for the organ-
ization of the United States Textile Exhibit at the Paris Exposition in 1900,
and selected such exhibits as procured for the manufacturers of this
country "Grand Prizes" and "Gold Medals" in all but one instance. The
subject of this sketch was a member of the National Geographic Society
and was textile technologist for the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia.
October, 1870, Mr. Kittredge married Martha Sargent, daughter of
Samuel and Elizabeth (Sargent) Hodges. After her death in 1881 he
married Helen Litchfield in 1883.
.\fter an illness lasting about three days, ]\Tr. Kittredge died in Atlanta,
Ga., June 5, 1909, leaving a widow and three children.
iMi.£rEe. mzuAMS £,BBomr
^r^t^^^^Z'\J^^2c,\
JXMESMIMIB CO.
OF THE UNITED STATES 405
ROBERT McARTHUR.
Robert McArthur was born in Ashton, England, May 18, 1838, son
of John and Jane (Lee) McArthur. The McArthurs were of Scotch and
the Lees of EngHsh ancestry. Robert McArthur came to New England
in 1842, and after a few years' schooling went to work as a bobbin boy in
a cotton mill at Woonsocket, R. L, and at the age of nineteen became
overseer in a cotton mill at Spragueville, R. L, later holding the same
position with the Manville Company, Manville, R. L, and the Social Mills,
Woonsocket, R. L In 1870 he accepted the superintendency of the Mill-
ville Manufacturing Company, Millville, N. J., and in 1873 returned to
New England to fill the position of agent of the Manchaug Company Mills,
Manchaug, Sutton, Mass., where he remained up to 1883. He then
accepted a like position with the Grosvenor Dale Company, North Gros-
venor Dale, Thompson, Conn., remaining with this company from 1883
to 1886, when he resigned to become agent of the Pepperell Manufacturing
Company, Biddeford, Me., which operated over 200,000 spindles and was
the largest cotton mill in the State of Maine. The company prospered
exceedingly under Mr. McArthur's management, which continued until
1910, when he resigned in order that he might retire from the business
altogether.
During the Civil War Mr. McArthur volunteered as a private in the
engineer corps of the United States Volunteer Army in 1863 and served
till the close of the war, 1865. During his long residence in Biddeford,
Me., Mr. McArthur manifested continual interest in the welfare of that
city and contributed generously to various objects of public interest. He
built the McArthur library building, and also gave $15,000 to the McArthur
Library Association, as well as $15,000 to the Webber Hospital. He also
gave the McArthur gymnasium building to the Westbrook Seminary at
Westbrook, and gave generously to the First Universalist Church and
the City Mission. Pie was elected to membership in the American Society
of Mechanical Engineers in 1894, served as president of the New England
Cotton Manufacturers' Association for two terms, 1892-94, and of the
Textile Club of Boston from 1902 to 1904. He was also a member of all
the Masonic bodies and of Post Sheridan, G. A. R., and a member of the
famous William Tell Club. He patented a fire extinguisher in 1904, and
assigned his rights in that invention to the Kitson Machine Company.
On May 18, 1861, Mr. McArthur married Lydia Ann, daughter of
William and Eliza (Paine) Swan, of Smithfield, R. I., and had five
children.
4o6 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
ALVIN SUMNER LYON.
Alvin Sumner Lyon was born in Methuen, Essex County, ]\Iass.,
March i, 1840, son of Calvin and Cynthia Lyon; grandson of Ebenezer
and Rebecca (Upham) Lyon.
Alvin S. Lyon received his primary instruction in the public schools of
Methuen. When nine years of age his father removed to Lawrence, and
he there completed his education, and in 1858 entered the Bay State Mills,
Lawrence, to learn the wool manufacturing business, his first occupation be-
ing the sorting of the wool. Two years later he was given a place in the card
room. In 1861 he went to work in the Atlantic Cotton Mills as weaver, and
later worked as carder and spinner. From 1868 to 1870 he was in the employ
of the Pacific Mills in similar capacities. Thus was he given an oppor-
tunity to study the details of the woolen, worsted and cotton manufacturing
business, which resulted in his becoming an expert mill man. In 1870
he was made superintendent of the quilt department of the Beaman Mills
Company, West Boylston, Mass., and held a similar position in the
Bates Quilt Mill, Lewiston, Me., and in the Delaine Mill, Olneyville,
R. I. He was also superintendent of the weaving department of the
Merchants' Mill at Fall River, and in 1877 was made superintendent of
the Crescent Mills, Fall River, and in 1881 of the Durfee Mills. In 1883
he was appointed agent of the Lowell Mfg. Co., and in 1899, when that
company consolidated with the Bjgelow Carpet Company, of Clinton,
under the style of the Bigelow Carpet Company, he was made agent of the
new corporation, and held that position until 1906, when he resigned to be-
come agent of the Wood Worsted Mills, at Lawrence. At the time of his
death he was one of the oldest mill men in this country, as well as one of
the ablest, and received an exceptionally large salary.
He held positions of trust in Lowell as director in the Railroad Bank
and the Central Savings Bank of that city, and of the Kitson
Machine Company. He was also largely interested in the Lowell Textile
School. He was the inventor of machines for skein dying, wool mixing
and other labor-saving devices.
Mr. Lyon married. June 16, 1862, Helen, daughter of Edward and
Eunice Hogan. Mrs. Lyon died at Lawrence, Mass., Nov. 26, 1906. His
son, George A. Lyon, was superintendent of the worsted department of
the Bigelow Carpet Company up to 1906, when he became a representative
of the Lowell Machine Shop, and in 1907 he organized the Lyon Carpet
Company.
Mr. A. S. Lyon died at Swampscott, Mass., Aug. 6, 1907.
VNC: BirS.a. WHLLLfMS 3B/W-I^y^
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L^^fCS H: LAM3 CO-
OF THE UNITED STATES 407
BEVERLY COTTON MILL.
As early as 1640, but more effectually in 1786 and 1787, the General
Court of Massachusetts interested itself in introducing into the common-
wealth and encouraging the growing of flax and hemp and the breeding
and maintaining of sheep, together with the maintenance of factories for
the purpose of making cloth of flax, wool and cotton, which articles were
mostly supplied by England. This effort was made before the Federal
constitution had been adopted, and was a measure taken purely by the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The legislature offered the usual pre-
miums of prohibitory duties, land grants, the privilege of conducting a
lottery and kindred devices for raising money and protecting the infant
industry. England had, during the period of the American Revolution,
been active in setting up machinery for both spinning yarn and weaving
cloth from the fibre of cotton. But up to this time cloth had been produced
only through hand labor in the New World, and the cotton used came
from beyond the sea, and was imported to be used to mix with linen and
sheeps' wool in spinning yarn by hand. The instinct of trade so universal
in the New England States suggested the economy of exchanging the
most valuable export of that time (fish) for "cotton wool as it grew on
trees in the West Indies." This chance for profit was not long allowed
to slumber, and John Cabot and Dr. Fisher petitioned the General Court
for aid in order to make profitable the manufacture of imported raw
cotton. Experiments were tried at various places along the Atlantic coa^t,
to make profitable use of cotton wool, and some of these experiments
were made at home and some in rude mills. Some would card by ma-
chinery and spin and weave by hand. The fabrics made were generally
mixtures of cotton, flax and wool-cotton, with a linen warp producing jeans,
— and were woven with the hand shuttle. It was 1788 before South
Carolina announced to the world that cotton would grow on her soil and
under her genial sun. This was the very year that John Cabot and Dr.
Fisher were working on cotton carding and spinning machinery in their
mill at Beverly, Mass., with the best prospects of being able in time to
produce a finished fabric by machinery, each implement used to be made to
do its work by horse power. The legislature of Massachusetts in October,
1786, had appointed Senator Cranch and Representative Bowdoin and other
members of the legislature to act as a committee "to view any new-invented
machines that are making within the Commonwealth for the purpose of
manufacturing sheeps' and cotton wool, and to report what measures are
proper for the legislature to take to encourage the same." Models were
brought to Boston for the inspection of the committee, each prospective
contestant expecting to get valuable aid from the commonwealth, and
through the report of this committee a resolve was passed in November,
1786, granting two hundred pounds to enable the brothers Rarr, two
408 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Scotch weavers and machinists then at Bridgewater, to perfect the apparatus
exhibited for "carding, roping and spinning of sheeps' wool as well as
cotton wool," the legislature in a body inspecting the machines after
passing the resolve, and commending the public spirit of the inventors
allowed their account to the amount of 189 pounds 12 shillings, pur-
chased their models and gave them instead of the promised two hundred
pounds six tickets in the land-lottery of 1787.
In March, 1787, the legislature granted the sum of twenty pounds to
encourage Thomas Somers, also a Scotchman, to perfect apparatus for
carding and spinning cotton, which he had obtained in England in 1785-86,
which were, in fact, Arkwright's inefifectually secured patents, and first used
at Beverly Cotton Mill. In the latter part of 1788, Cabot, Fisher and
their associates had completed a three-story brick building, which they
had begun in 1787, 60x25 feet, with a pitched shingle roof and a deep
basement, in one end of which moved a heavy pair of horses to furnish
rotary power.
The following is an extract taken from a quaint letter written by Joshua
Herrick to Mr. Batchelder in 1863, which afifords an interesting glimpse into
the methods of this early industry (see Bagnall) :
"There was in said factory a large, old-fasliioned carding machine,
something like the machines for carding wool, and drawing-head.^:, some-
thing like those used at Wood End, Dover, N. H., and at Brunswick, Ale.,
the whole carried by two large horses turning an upright shaft in a wooden
building contiguous to the main building, with a drum-shaft carried into the
second story."
In a conversation with Air. Batchelder the old gentleman further stated
that "he drove the horses. They were a large, handsome span of chestnuts,
and when he drove too fast Mr. Summers would call out of the window:
'Hold on there ! Not so fast ! Slower !' and he would hold on ; but he would
forget the order and drive away, and then he would' get a second order to
"hold up !' The mill was fifty feet long, of brick. Nine old women picked
the seeds of the cotton, and the cotton was cleaned by men who laid it on
a network of cod-line, and whipped it with long sticks."
Further in his letter Mr. Herrick thus describes the machinery : "The
last drawing cans were taken into the rear of the billy, a machine that went
by hand and made the roping, and operated something like the jenny, except-
ing the speed of the spindles, which was much slower, and the cops made
much larger, and, when dofifed, were put on to the wooden spindles or
skewers, to set up into the rack of the jenny. There was a slanting feed
cloth in the rear of the billy, the lower part of which was a little above the
top of the cans, on which the drawing was lapped and rolled by the hand to
join it. The jenny had forty spindles, and worked very much like the old-
fashioned woolen jenny. The cops were doffed from the spindle as they
are now from the mule. If for warp, they were twisted harder and taken
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OF THE UNITED STATES 409
to' other wheels to be wound on spools ; if for filhng, it was twisted slack
and taken to the winder of bobbins for the shuttle
"I never heard of the 'spring-shuttle.' They were called the 'fly-
shuttle' at the old factory. The box for the shuttle was put on to the lathe
that hung from the top of the loom, and had pickers, like those of the power
looms. The weaver had a handle in his right hand with strings to each
picker ; when he swung his lathe back, he threw his shuttle through the
woof into the opposite box ; and for any common goods he brought his lathe
against the filling but once Corduroys, velvets, thicksetts, and
jeans, were manufactured at the old brick mill."
"The building, the first put up in America as a cotton mill, was
erected on Bass River on a lot on the road from Mr. Oliver's Meet-
ing House to Beverly Ferry, which they had purchased from Josiah Batch-
elder, Esq., and Hannah, his wife, by deed dated Aug. 18, 1788. The
legislature was petitioned in June, 1788, for an act of incorporation for the
manufacture of cotton, the principal part of the labor to be performed
by machinery, many of the machines being applicable to the manufacture
of silk, hemp, flax and wool ; to aiiford employment to a great number
of women and children, etc. The signers to the petition were : John
Cabot, George Cabot, Deborah Cabot, Andrew Cabot, Moses Brown, Nathan
Dane, Joshua Fisher, Thomas Somers, Israel Thorndike, James Leonard,
Henry Higiginson and Isaac Chapman. This petition was referred to a
sitting of the General Court in January, 1789, and on February 3, 1789,
the adventurers procured a charter, an endorsement of their enterprise,
and a great aid for encouraging the cotton manufacturing at Beverly.
As early as April, 1788, the Salem Mercury announced that the
Cabots had procured a complete set of machinery for carding and spin-
ning cotton, the spinning jenny spinning sixty threads at a time, and by
the carding machine "forty pounds of cotton can be well carded in a day;"
the warping machine and other tools, part of which go by water, are
all complete, performing their various operations to great advantage and
promise much benefit to the public, and emolument to the patriotic ad-
ventures." The Salem Mercury of May 6, 1788, contained the follow-
ing notice: "The artists who introduced into Beverly the machines for
carding and spinning cotton are Mr. Leonard and Mr. Somers, who were
regularly bred to the making and finishing of velvets, corduroys, jeans,
fustians, demins, Marseilles quiltings, dimity muslins, etc. With such
talents they supposed that the risk and expense of coming to this country
Would be amply recompensed by the encouragement such valuable manu-
factures deserve. But they made various applications with no other
effect than loss of time and money. Sttch difficulties, co-operating with
the want of energy and system in our government, reduced them to the
disagreeable necessity of resolving to leave a country so unpromising to
manufacturers, when the Hon. George Cabot generously patronized them
410 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
and influenced a number of gentlemen of Beverly to associate for the
purpose of establishing these much wanted industries. These gentlemen
merit the thanks of their fellow-citizens." On Jan. 6, 1789, the same
newspaper mentions a promising cotton manufactory in Beverly. Ap-
prentices to the business of attending the machinery were received as
early as June, 1789, and in 1790 the Beverly Mill sent out a mechanic to
set up machinery in a Connecticut cotton mill. On Oct. 30, 1789,
President Washington, then on a journey through the New England
States, took breakfast with George Cabot, subsequently United States
Senator from Massachusetts and first secretary of the United States navy,
at his home in Beverly. The president had left his coach at the Wood
Mansion, Salem, and, by invitation of his friend and long-time corre-
spondent, he proceeded on horseback to inspect the draw of a just completed
bridge which Cabot had promoted, and after breakfast at the Cabot
mansion he rode on to the cotton mill, where he was greeted by the young
women employed in the mill, reinforced by their friends, and he thor-
oughly examined the process of manufacture and witnessed the operation
of the rude machinery. The distinguished visitor, after slaking his thirst
at the vvell, took his departure in his travelling carriage for Newburyport
and Portsmouth.
Washington, in his journal of Friday, October 30, thus describes this
visit:
"After passing Beverly 2 miles, we come to the Cotton Manufactory,
which seems to be carrying on with spirit by the Mr. Cabbots (principally).
In this manufactory they have the new Invented Carding and Spinning
machines; one of the first supplies the work; and four of the latter; one
of which spins 84 threads at a time by one person. The Cotton is prepared
for these machines by being (lightly) drawn to a thrd, on the common
wheel; there is also another machine for doubling and twisting the threads
for particular cloths : this also does many at a time. For winding the
Cotton from the Spindles and preparing it for the warp there is a Reel
which expedites the work greatly. A number of Looms ( 15 or 16) were at
work with spring shuttles, which do more than d'ble work. In short,
the whole seemed perfect, and the Cotton stuffs, w'ch they turn out, excellent
of their kind ; warp and filling both are now of Cotton."
February 17, 1789, the legislature passed a "Resolve for encouraging
the Cotton Manufactory at Beverly," by which land to the amount of five
hundred pounds was granted to "the Proprietors of the Beverly Cotton
Manufactory." Finding this grant insufficient for their purposes in 1791,
they made further ap])lication with the following result •
Refolve on the petition of the proprietors of the Bevrrlv Cotton
Manufactory, granting them feven hundred tickets, in the Semi-annual
State Lottery — on condition.
Paffed, March 4, 1791.
Where.as, the manufacture of Cotton, as undertaken by the proprie-
tors of the Beverly Cotton Manufactory, continues to need the aid of
Government for its fupport and effectual eftablifhment. notwithftand-
OF THE UNITED STATES 411
ing the fpirited exertions of the faid proprietors ; and it appearing to be of
great importance to this Commonwealth, that the faid manufacture fhould
be purfued:
Refolved, That there be, and is hereby granted to the faid proprie-
tors, four hundred tickets of the prefent State Lottery, called the Semi-
annual Lottery; and alfo three hundred tickets more to be received from
the next lottery or clafs, which fhall be undertaken by the managers of the
State Lottery, of the fame price : — and the faid Managers are hereby
directed and authorized, to deliver the faid Proprietors, their Treafurer,
Agent, or Committee, the faid 400 tickets, from the Lottery now in hand ;
and the faid three hundred tickets, from the faid next lottery, or clafs,
as foon as may be, after the fale thereon fhall be commenced: taking two
receipts of the faid Treafurer, or other' perfon, to whom the fame fhall
be delivered, or the ufe of the faid Proprietors, upon each delivery, the
one of such receipts to be lodged with the Treafurer of this Commonwealth ;
and the other to be retained by the Manager or Managers, who fhall deliver
the fame.
Provided, and it is further Refolved, That the faid Proprietors, by
their Corporate Name, fhall become bound to this Commonwealth, in the
fum of three thousand pounds in a bond, to be delivered to the Treafurer.
and to be conditioned, that the faid proprietors fhall, for at leaft feven
years now coming, continue to profecutc the faid manufacture at Beverly,
or elfewhere, under the immediate direction of the faid Proprietors, their
Agents or Servants; and fhall employ therein, with all reafonable care and
induftry, at leaft their whole prefent f tock ; and alfo after the firft day
of Jidy next, an additional fum of tzvclve hundred pounds; and fhall deliver
with the faid bond, to the Treafurer, a correct inventory of their faid
prefent ftock.
The fabrics produced at the Beverly Mill, including corduroys, royal
ribs, thick setts, stockinette and rib deliveries, were on sale in Beverly,
Salem and elsewhere in Massachusetts in 1789 and in 1790, "the wear
of the Beverly corduroys had become very common." According to a
letter from George Cabot to Alexander Hamilton, dated Beverly, Sept.
6, 1791, the Beverly Cotton Mills at that time had in operation machinery
as follows: 'One carding-engine, which, with the labor of one man, cards
fifteen pounds per day and with the labor of two men is capable of card-
ing thirty pounds per day; nine spinning jennies of 60 and 84 spindles
each; one doubling and twisting machine, constructed on the principle of
the jenny; one slabbing machine or coarse jenny, to prepare the ropings
for the finest jennies, wherein they are fitted for doubling and twisting;
one warping-mill sufficient to perform this part of the work for a very
extensive manufactory ; sixteen looms with flying shuttles, ten of which
are sufficient to weave all the yarn our present spinners can finish ; two
cutting frames, with knife guides, etc. ; one burner and furnace, with
apparatus to singe the goods; apparatus for coloring, drying, etc." Of
the forty persons employed in the factory, thirty-nine were natives of
the vicinity of the mill. The venture never proved profitable, and the
statement to Alexander Hamilton showed a loss of $5,000, which the
412 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
proprietors hoped to make up partially by the sale of $4,000 in land and
lottery tickets granted by the legislature of Massachusetts. The experi-
ence gained in this early venture was turned to good account by the pro-
prietors of subsequently founded cotton mills.
The Salem Gazette of Oct. 14, 1828, says: "The brick factory,
with the barn and sheds attached to the Baker Tavern in Beverly, was
burnt down and the tavern was on fire when the Eastern stage came
through Beverly last evening." And the Essex Register of the i6th adds:
"The fire first started from the chimney of the Tavern just before dark
during a violent gale, and consumed the brick building near by, formerly
used as a cotton factory." A brick meeting-house was erected in 1829 at
Beverly Farms, and the venerable Deacon Haskell was one of a party of
young men who at that time visited the ruins of the cotton mill at upper
Beverly, where they cleaned the bricks and removed them to the Farms to
be used in building the village meeting-house.
MERRIMACK MANUFACTURING COMPANY.
"The Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on Merrimack River were
chartered by the General Court of Massachusetts, June 27, 1792, to pro-
vide navigation from the north line of the State to the sea; but in the
following year a charter was granted to the Proprietors of the Middle-
sex Canal for connecting the Merrimack River above Pawtucket Falls
with Medford River, and two years later an additional act granted the
right to continue this canal to Boston. This rendered the completion of
navigation down the Merrimack River of little importance, and the work
of the Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on Merrimack River was
limited to passing Wicasse Falls by a single lock and passing Pawtucket
Falls by five locks, and a canal one and three-quarters miles long, with
. a fall of thirty-two feet. This is believed to be the first canal in
America in which boats were lifted from one level to another when
floating in the lock. Its charter was dated but thirty-three years after
that of the Bridgewater Canal in Lancashire, England, which was the
commencement of the British Barge Navigation.
"Patrick T. Jackson, Nathan Appleton and others, who, with Francis
C. Lowell, in 1814, commenced cotton manufacture at Waltham, on fhe
Charles River, found in 1821 that their waterpower was all in use, and
desiring to extend their business a.nd introduce into the country the
manufacture and printing of calicoes, they purchased the stock of tRe
canal company and a large area of land adjacent to the canal, near
Pawtucket Falls, in the town of Chelmsford, and were chartered under
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OF THE UNITED STATES 413
the name of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, Feb. 5, 1822, with
a capital stock of $600,000.
"The shares of the canal company were conveyed to the directors of
the manufacturing company in trust, so that the old organization was
continued.
"The Merrimack Manufacturing Company found it necessary for its
own use to build a dam across the river, to enlarge the old Pawtucket
Canal and build a branch canal. This being accomplished, they, in 1825,
sold all of the land and waterpower not required for their own purposes
to the Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on Merrimack River.
"The latter company made the necessary new canals to bring the water
power into use. They laid out the town and built many of the streets
and the necessary bridges. The Merrimack Manufacturing Company
built St. Anne's Church in 1824."
The above extract conveys an idea of how the Merrimack, the pioneer
manufacturing enterprise of Lowell, began. The stock of the corpora-
tion was distributed among Kirk and J. W. Boott (180 shares), Nathan
A])pleton (180 shares), P. T. Jackson (180 shares) and Ruel Moody
(60 shares). The first officers of the corporation were: Kirk Boott,
treasurer of the corporation, and for one year superintendent of the
Print Works ; Allan Pollock, 1823, superintendent of the Print Works ;
Ezra Worthen, superintendent of the spinning and weaving departments
in 1823; Warren Colburn in 1824, and Kirk Boott from 1825 to 1833, when
John Clark became superintendent. He in turn was succeeded, in 1848, by
Emory Washburn ; in 1849 by Edmund L. LeBreton ; in 1850 by Isaac
Hinckley; in 1865 by John C. Palfrey; in 1874 by Joseph S. Ludlam,
who also became agent; in 1896 by John W. Pead, and in 1904 by J. C.
Wadleigh.
The mills of the company were located on lands transferred by Thomas
M. Clark and other purchasers or owners to Kirk Boott, John W. Boott,
Nathan Appleton, Patrick T. Jackson and Paul Moody, and by them to the
Merrimack Manufacturing Company. The first water-wheel of this com-
pany was set in motion Sept. i, 1823, and to them is due the credit of in-
troducing into America the business of printing calicoes. While it is
probable that a company in Dover, N. H., and one in Taunton, Mass., had
started actual operations for the conducting of this industry a short time
before the plant of the Merrimack Company was set in motion, yet,
nevertheless, it was the latter company who first conceived the idea of
establishing this trade in America. They are also recorded as being the
first in this country to use the cylinder rollers, the printing of calicoes
having previously been accomplished by the use of hand blocks.
Allan Pollock continued as superintendent of the Print Works until
1826, when he was succeeded by John D. Prince, of Manchester, England.
The latter held office until 1855, when Henry Burrows succeeded him. In
414 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
1875 James Duckworth became superintendent, and in 1882 Robert Lea-
tham, who was followed in 1885 by his brother, Joseph Leatham ; and he
in 1887 by John J. Hart. Mr. Boott died in 1837, and the treasurership
was held by Francis Cabot Lowell for two years, 1837-39; and in 1839
Eben Chadwick was elected and served for fifteen years. Francis B.
Crowninshield was treasurer, 1854-77; Arthur T. Lyman and Augustus
Lowell for short terms in 1877; Charles H. Dalton, 1877-89; Howard
Stockton, 1889-1900, when he was succeeded by Charles L. Levering,
who held office until his death on May 5, 1908, when he was succeeded
by Herbert Lyman.
PROGRESSION OF THE BUSINESS.
In 191 1 the capital stock was $4,400,000, and the equipment of the
seven mills then in operation in Lowell, Mass., comprised 4,367 looms,
155,376 spindles, and 2^ printing machines. The company also occupied
a three-story building, 344X 128 feet, and a five-story building, 437 x 130
feet, in Huntsville, Ala. The equipment of the southern plant included
318 cards, 92,480 spindles, 2,281 looms, "narrow;" 400 40-inch looms, one
Hamilton-Corliss Engine, 2,500 horsepower, and one American & British
Manufacturing Marine Type Engine, 1,500 horsepower. The gcods pro-
duced by the Merrimack Manufacturing Company include fancy prints,
plain and fancy wash goods, mercerized goods, -corduroys and velvets.
Besides the waterpower obtained from seven water-wheels the company at
Lowell installed seven large engines of the Green-Wheelock, Buckeye and
Corliss patterns, of from 500 to 2,500 horsepower, the entire steam and
waterpower aggregating 10,000 horsepower.
In 191 1 the officers of the corporation were: Arthur T. Lyman, presi-
dent ; Herbert Lyman, treasurer ; J. C. Wadleigh, agent ; Avery B. Clark,
superintendent of Mills ; Percy Gulline, superintendent of Print Works ;
Herbert B. Lincoln, clerk; Arthur T. Lyman, George Wigglesworth,
Charles F. Ayer, Jacob Rogers, Arthur Lyman, James Arnold Lowell and
Herbett Lyman, directors ; and Lawrence & Co., selling agents ; and Arthur
W. Hunking, 1900; George T. Marsh, 1901 ; and Joseph S. Bradley,
agents at the Alabama factory.
The sales of cloth for 1909 were over 87,000,000 yards, valued at
nearly $6,500,000. There were over 4,000 people employed by the
company.
OF THE UNITED STATES 415
THE LAWRENCE MANUFACTURING COMPANY.
The Lawrence Manufacturing Company, Lowell, Middlesex County,
Mass., on the Merrimac River and the Boston and Maine Railroad, was
projected in June, 1831, by A. & A. Lawrence, commission merchants of
Boston, and their associates, who had been instrumental in beginning the
cotton industry at Lowell. The corporation known as the Lawrence Manu-
facturing Company was incorporated by the legislature of the State of
Massachusetts, June 7, 1831, the capital stock of the corporation being
fixed by the charter at $1,200,000, and increased and decreased from time
to time, and in 1910 was $1,250,000. The first board of directors elected
Thomas H. Perkins president and William Appleton treasurer, the latter
serving only through the passage of the act of incorporation, being suc-
ceeded in 1832 by Henry Hall, who served as treasurer for twenty-five
years. In 1835 Amos Lawrence was elected president of the corporation,
but he served only one year, and in 1836 was succeeded by Thomas B.
Wales, who held the office for seventeen years. Abbott Lawrence served
from 1853 to 1855, and he was succeeded by Ignatius Sargent, who served
from 1855 to 1859. William Appleton was president from 1859 to 1861,
and John A. Lowell 1861 and part of 1862. Ignatius Sargent was elected
temporarily in 1862, and regularly in 1863. John A. Lowell followed Mr.
Sargent, serving 1864-67. George H. Kuhn was president of the corpora-
tion, 1867-74, followed by J. Huntington Wolcott, 1874-82; T. Jefiferson
Coolidge, 1882-92; W. Powell Mason, 1892-94, and T. Jeiiferson Coolidge
from 1894-1910. After Mr. Henry Hall's service as treasurer, the office
was filled by Henry V. Ward for eleven years, 1857-68; by T. Jefferson
Coolidge twelve years, 1868-80; by Lucius M. Sargent thirteen years,
1880-93, and in 1893 Clifton P. Baker was elected treasurer.
In 1896 the capital stock was reduced to $750,000, as the corporation
had given up the manufacture of cloth. In 1901 the capital was in-
creased $500,000 by the issue of a stock dividend, making it $1,250,000.
Originally the mills were devoted entirely to the manufacture of coarse
cotton cloth, but in 1864 the knitting of stockings and underwear was
introduced in a small way, and, after 1896, when the weaving of cloth
was discontinued, the looms and a portion of the spindles used in
spinning yarns for cloth with the portion of the plant devoted to that
industry was sold, the remaining mills being devoted to the manufac-
ture of cotton hosiery. The entire plant in 1910 included seven distinct
mills with storehouses, dyehouses, machine shop, and the numerous
other buildings required. The officers of the corporations, with offices at
58 Ames Building, Boston, were: T. Jefferson CooHdge, Jr., president;
Clifton P. Baker, treasurer and general manager; Everett H. Walker,
agent at the mill, and F. A. Wilcox, clerk; and the Board of Directors
included the president and treasurer, George Gardner, Arthur T. I-yman,
4i6 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
T. Jefferson Coolidge, Henry B. Cabot, Charles W. Amory, Franklin
Nourse and Francis W. Sargent. The mills gave steady employment to
nearly 4,000 hands, and consumed annually 20,000 bales of American and
Egyptian cotton. The company, besides making the yarn and thread used
in its own manufacturing operations, sold over 25,000 pounds weekly. It
operated 111,000 spindles, over 100 combers for its high grade yarn, more
than 2,400 knitting machines and 1,000 sewing machines. Its box shop
turned out over 62,000 paper boxes each week, and for packing cases used
2,250,000 feet of lumber per annum. For the year ending April 30, 1910,
the product of underwear amounted to 959,695 dozen, and of hosiery
1,030,476 dozen. E. M. Townsend & Co., of New York, Boston, Phila-
delphia and Chicago, were selling agents for the company.
THE LOWELL MACHINE SHOP.
The British Stamp Act of 1765 threw the American people upon their
own resources politically. The British "Act to prevent the exportation to
foreign parts of the utensils made use of in the cotton, linen, woolen and
silk manufactures of this Kingdom," enacted in 1774, threw them upon
their own resources industrially. The forty years which followed that
enactment witnessed the invention of the cotton-gin by Eli Whitney, an
American, and the introduction into the English textile industries of the
steam-engine and of power-driven carding, spinning and weaving machin-
ery ; but the transfer of those foreign inventions to the United States was
attended with grave difficulties. Nevertheless, partly by memorizing the
nature of the English machinery and partly by invention, power-driven
carding and spinning machinery had been successfully introduced into the
United States before the War of 1812. In 181 1 Mr. Francis C. Lowell, of
Boston, being temporarily in Great Britain, was attracted by the efforts
which were there being made to improve upon power-driven weaving ma-
chinery. He returned to Boston, two years later, with an excellent knowl-
edge of the English machinery and of its uses, and, associating himself
with others, notably with Mr. Patrick T. Jackson and Mr. Nathan Apple-
ton, who were capitalists of Boston and who actively interested themselves
in financing and managing the new enterprise, and with Mr. Paul Moody,
of Amesbury, who was a skilled and reputable mechanic, for the first time
in history systematically converted cotton into cloth within the walls of a
single building. Mr. Lowell experimented with his first power-loom at a
store in Broad Street in Boston, but it was ready for trial only upon the
completion of the new mill building at Waltham. By the united efforts of
Mr. Lowell and Mr. Moody, one variety after another of successful tex-
tile machines were developed and manufactured, until the sum of four hun-
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OF THE UNITED STATES 417
dred thousand dollars had been expended, and the art of manufacturing cot-
ton cloth from baled cotton within a single building under a single man-
agement had been successfully initiated. The profits of this undertaking
created a demand for its extension. The water power of the Merrimack
River at the Pawtucket Falls was purchased. The IMerrimack Manu-
facturing Company was formed to manufacture cotton goods in 1823, and
a machine shop of the exact size of the most approved building for the
manufacture of cotton cloth was constructed by it upon the banks of the
Merrimack and Pawtucket Canals in East Chelmsford, now Lowell, with
the intention of constructing therein the machinery for the equipment of
the Merrimack Manufacturing Company's Mills, and then, when there
would be no longer a use for such a shop, of converting it into a cotton
manufactory. The patent rights and the use of all of the patterns of the
Waltham machinery were acquired, and the new shop was managed by
Mr. Moody from the beginning until his death in 1831. In 1825 the
proprietors of the locks and canals on Merrimack River purchased
the machine shop with such rights and use, and continued to supply the
necessary machinery to each new mill which was constructed until 1845,
when an independent corporation, called the Lowell Machine Shop, was
formed, which purchased the machine shop property and business.
The original machine shop building is still standing, and it has been
continuously used for machine construction. Mr. George Brownell, an
expert machinist who had learned the business in the Waltham Machine
Shop and had afterward engaged in manufacturing cotton machinery in
Fall River, was induced by Mr. Paul Moody to come to the shop of the
Merrimack Manufacturing Company, and to remain when it was transferred
to the proprietors of the locks and canals ; and, after the death of Mr.
Moody, Mr. Brownell remained as superintendent until the property was
sold to the Lowell Machine Shop. In the beginning the shop had no foun-
dry, and as late as 1835-37 its castings were being purchased of Captain
Lincoln Drake, of North Chelmsford. In 1840, it is said, thirty thousand
dollars ($30,000) were expended upon a foundry. The Lowell Machine
Shop was incorporated by John A. Lowell, Abbott Lawrence and Nathan
Appleton, with an authorized capital stock of five hundred thousand dol-
lars ($500,000). When it began operations, three hundred thousand dol-
lars (300,000) had been paid in. On Feb. 5, 1848, the legislature
authorized an increase in the capital stock to one million of dollars ($1,000,-
000). An additional three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000) was paid
in 1848, and another three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000) in 1881.
On March 12, 1845, the stockholders elected: J. Thomas Stevenson, treas-
urer ; William Alvord Burke, superintendent, and Patrick T. Jackson, ex-
ecutive manager. Mr. Burke was a machinist who had served his time
at the Nashua Manufacturing Company's shops at Nashua, New Hamp-
shire. At the age of twenty-three he was placed in charge of the machine
4i8 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
shops of Ira Gay and Company, of Nashua, and when twenty-five he be-
came master machinist of the Boott Cotton Mills, where he remained for
four years. In 1839 he became agent of the Amoskeag Machine Shop at
Manchester, N. H. He remained sixteen years at the Lowell jNIachine
Shop as its superintendent, and saw the establishment develop into the
most extensive works in the United States devoted to the manufacture
of machinery used in the production of plain cotton cloth.
It was as essential that these newly organized cotton manufactories
should be provided with power-producing and power-distributing plants
as with textile machines. It was, therefore, necessary for the machine
shop which had been initiated by the Merrimack Manufacturing Company
to construct the water-wheels which were to utilize the power of the Merri-
mack River. This was begun by Mr. Paul Moody, who was guided by
the principles which had been laid down by Smeaton, the eminent hydraulic
engineer. Later, Mr. Uriah A. Boyden, an American engineer, invented
an improved form of the turbine water-wheel. It was less costly of con-
struction, occupied much less space, rotated more rapidly, and therefore
more nearly at the speed desired for the shafting, and was much more
efficient than the Smeaton-Moody wheels. These Boyden wheels were con-
structed here, and rapidly replaced the others. At a still later date, Mr.
Asa M, Swain, a pattern-maker of the Lowell Machine Shop, who was em-
ployed in the making of patterns for the Boyden turbines, invented an im-
proved turbine which was smaller, more rapid, less costly and, under some
conditions, more efficient than the Boyden turbine, and it replaced the latter.
L^pon the formation of the independent Swain Turbine and Manufacturing
Company, the Lowell Machine Shop gladly transferred its energies from
the manufacture of water-wheels and devoted them more strictly to the
manufacture of textile machinery. This is only a single illustration of a
principle which has continually found application in the history of this
shop.
At first the power was distributed by means oS heavy slowly moving
shafting and gearing, in accordance with the English system. Later, in
1828, when the equipment of the Appleton Mills was being undertaken, Mr.
Moody cut loose from established precedents, and substituted for such shaft-
ing and gearing lighter and more rapidly moving shafting with pulleys and
belting. This substitute power-distributing machinery was cheaper to con-
struct and wasted less power in the distribution, and there has been no re-
turn to the English system. When Mr. W. \Y. Carey equipped a machine
shop at Lowell with modern appliances for producing power-distributing
machinery, appliances which were sufficiently extensive to meet promptly
the needs of manufacturers, the Lowell Machine Shop simplified its plant
and its management by giving up this phase of its business, but improved
its facilities for the more satisfactory and rapid production of the best
textile machinery. In June, 1835, the Boston and Lowell Railroad was
OF THE UNITED STATES 419
opened for travel. Locomotives were needed and were manufactured By
this shop, which was the first to produce locomotives in New England.
This manufacture was given up during the sixties, when the independent
locomotive shop had gained a permanent and profitable foothold in the
United States. At an early date this shop began to supply paper mills with
the necessary equipment of paper machinery, and continued to do so until
the death, in 1891, of Mr. Wyllis G. Eaton, who had managed the business
for the shop. Space will not permit even a condensed recital of the his-
tory of the manufacture by this shop of stationary steam-engines and
boilers and of many another class of machinery which was necessary to
the rapidly developing industries of the country, while as yet the manu-
facture of such class of machinery had not developed sufficiently to meet
the public need without calling upon the resources of the "Big Shop."
With a continuity of purpose which resembles the onflow of the Mer •
rimack, the Lowell Machine Shop has ever sought to diminish its produc-
tion along other lines, that it might more completely devote its energies
to, and develop its facilities for, the profitable manufacture and sale of,
and increase its output of, textile machinery of approved' excellence. With-
out counting its tenements, it has twenty-one separately designated build-
ings, having a united floor area of fourteen acres within its yard and de-
voted to the manufacture. It not only manufactures cotton, but also worsted
and silk machinery. The prospect of converting the shop into a cotton
manufactory never seemed more remote than it does to-day.
The most valuable output of this shop has been its men. There is
something in a brain-and-hand conflict with iron and steel, with intense
heat, with irresistible water and steam and compressed air and electrical
power, with the delicate Midas-touched problems of the textile industry;
and with the safeguarding and the profit-producing use of an immense sum
of money, which naturally inspires the healthy, vigorous, untrained New
England lad, the workman from every land, the skilled mechanic, draughts-
man, inventor, engineer, the trained man of science or of business, the
organizer, the manager, and even the chief executive, to do his best. The
worker develops with his success in conflict. It increases his breadth of
view, and his value as a producer, as a citizen, and as a man. Many a
human transformation has occurred within its walls, many a vigorous in-
telligence has made a lifelong and permanent impression upon the prob-
lems of the shop, or has gone hence to wrestle successfully with other
industrial difficulties upon the recommendation of its officials or of others.
The establishment of a high-grade free school of industrial drawing by the
city of Lowell, of almost free courses of instruction in the textile indus-
tries in the Lowell Textile School, the greaty extended curriculum of the
Lowell High School, and the lavish provisions for physical and intellectual
training in neighboring colleges and technical schools have increased the
opportunities for the development of energetic young men of the Lowell
420 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Machine Shop, who wish to be capable of doing the world's best work.
Increasing capital, wisely invested, carefully safeguarded, utilized to the
limit by wise, intelligent, industrious workers, will continue to develop man-
hood and will influence the future of industrial America even more than
it has its past.
The successive presidents have been John A. Lowell, Homer Bartlett,
George H. Kuhn, J. Huntington Wolcott, Augustus Lowell, Arthur T.
Lyman, and in 191 1, Robert F. Herrick.
The successive treasurers have been: J. Thomas Stevenson, 1845-76;
William Alvord Burke, 1876-84; Robert H. Stevenson, 1884-88; Charles
Lawrence Peirson, 1881-91 ; Robert H. Stevenson, 1891-1905; Haven C.
Perham, from 1905.
The successive superintendents have been : William Alvord Burke,
1845-61; Mertoun C. Bryant, 1861-62; Andrew Moody, 1862-70; George
Richardson, 1870-79; Charles L. Hildreth, 1 879-1 905 ; Albert H. Morton,
from 1905.
DRAPER COMPANY.
The business of this corporation, which is largely devoted to the de-
velopment, manufacture and sale of patented improvements in cotton
machinery, dates back to the year 181 6, when the first patent was granted
to Ira Draper for improvements in looms and loom temples. James Draper,
son of Ira, continued the business, and another son, Ebenezer D. Draper,
transferred it to Hopedale in 1842, where it has since been located.
In 1852 George Draper, brother of E. D. Draper, joined with him in
forming the partnership of E. D. & G. Draper. The patenting of the re-
ciprocating loom temple by E. & W. W. Dutcher in 1852 led to the pur-
chase of Elihu Dutcher's interest by the Drapers in 1854 and the forma-
tion of the partnership of W. W. Dutcher & Co. for the manufacture of
Dutcher temples. In 1856 this business was moved to Hopedale. In this
year also, on the giving up of its business operations by the Hopedale Com-
munity, the Drapers joined with Joseph B. Bancroft in forming the Hope-
dale Machine Company, a partnership, manufacturing various patented im-
provements in cotton machinery, sold by E. D. & G. Draper.
The Hopedale Furnace Company was organized in 1856 as another
partnership, to furnish castings used in the Hopedale industries.
In 1867 the corporations of the Hopedale Machine Company and Hope-
dale Furnace Company were organized to replace the partnerships under
same names, and the Dutcher Temple Company succeeded the firm of W.
W. Dutcher & Co.
In 1868 William F. Draper, son of George Draper, purchased the
OF THE UNITED STATES 421
interest of E. D. Draper in the firm of E. D. & G. Draper, and the name
was changed to Geo. Draper & Son. This became George Draper & Sons
in 1877 by the admission of George A. Draper. Later Eben S. Draper,
William F. Draper, Jr., and George Otis Draper were admitted to the firm,
the name remaining the same.
In 1892 the Northrop Loom Company was organized to develop tlie
inventions of James H. Northrop, Charles F. Roper and others in auto-
matic looms. In 1896 the corporation of Draper Company was organized
by consolidation of the Hopedale Machine Company, Dutcher Temple Com-
pany, Hopedale Machine Screw Company, the United States interests of
the Northrop Loom Company and the firm of George Draper & Sons.
William F. Draper was chosen president; Joseph B. Bancroft, vice-presi-
dent; George A. Draper, treasurer; Eben S. Draper, agent; George Otis
Draper, secretary; Eben D. Bancroft, purchasing agent; Frank J. Dutcher,
assistant agent, and Charles M. Day, general superintendent.
The growth of the business in Hopedale was from the little shop
planted there in 1842 by Eben D. Draper to the largest cotton machinery
plant in America, with a floor space of nearly thirty acres and engines rep-
resenting about three thousand horse-power. Its foundry' is the largest
in New England. The company has given employment to 3,000 workmen,
and has a capacity for the employment of 5,000. Around this plant has
grown up a model country village. Exhibits of its houses have repeatedly
received awards at expositions both in this country and abroad. Trolley
cars connect it with Boston, 34 miles ; Providence, 26 miles ; Worcester,
19 miles; Uxbridge. 7 miles, and Woonsocket, R. I., 13 miles. It has
ample railroad facilities, connecting with both the New York, New Haven.
& Hartford and the New York Central systems.
Among the important inventions which have been handled by this
company and its predecessors are the various types of modern high-speed
spindles, of which over 32,000,000 have been sold directly or through
licenses, and which have doubled the product of the cotton mills per spindle
with but little added cost for labor ; the double flange spinning ring, of
which about 25,000,000 have been sold; the Northrop loom, which is sav-
ing over $6,000,000 per annum to the mills on the looms sold up to Jan-
uary, 1910; the Dutcher temple, which has become the standard for all
classes of cotton weaving ; the cone warper. Wade bobbin holder, Rhoades-
Chandler separator, etc. The company also became the makers of twisters,
spoolers, banding machines and various special attachments for all the
above.
Hopedale inventors have added to the perfection of machinery for
cotton manufacturing, and patrons of the Draper Company have the
benefit of the best thought and experience of workmen and officials, thereby
insuring the latest and best of everything in the line of goods produced.
In 191 1 the officers of the company comprised: Frank J. Dutcher, presi-
422 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
dent and secretary ; Eben D. Bancroft, vice-president and purchasing agent ;
George A. Draper, treasurer; Eben S. Draper, agent; W. I. Stimpson, as-
sistant agent ; C. E. Nutting, general superintendent ; J. D. Cloudman,
Southern agent ; and the capital stock of the company was $8,000,000, of
which $6,000,000 was common and $2,000,000 preferred stock.
HAMILTON MANUFACTURING CO.
The plant of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company is situated at
Lowell, Mass., on the Merrimac River, and its factories, storehouses and
other buildings and boarding houses and tenements cover a space of nearly
eight acres. The land and water power of the Hamilton Manufacturing
Company was the first sold by the "Proprietors of Locks and Canals Com-
pany," and it was the second of the great system of factories that has
sprung from that parent enterprise.
The Hamilton Company was incorporated in 1825 by Samuel Batch-
elder, Benjamin Gorham, William Appleton, Wm. Sturgess and John
Lowell, Jr., with a capital of $600,000, which was increased to $800,000,
May, 1828; to $qoo,ooo,_ June, 1836; to $1,200,000, June, 1839, and to
$1,800,000 in 1 88 1.
The leading factor in the establishment of the Hamilton Company
was doubtless the success of the Merrimac Company, and the prompt sub-
scription of the capital stock was probably induced by the confidence which
the subscribers had in Mr. Samuel Batchelder, owner of a mill in New
Ipswich, N. H., who had agreed to become agent of the new corporation,
a fact which was duly set forth at the head of the subscription papers.
Accordingly, in 1825 Mr. Batchelder gave up the management of his own
mill and removed to Lowel to superintend the construction of the first
mill; in 1826 the second mill was built, each mill having a capacity of 6,144
spindles. In 1827 Mr. Batchelder adapted the power loom to the produc-
tion of twills, and during that year the Hamilton Mills produced the first
drilling, which has since maintained its place among the standard fabrics,
the first lot being sold at the semi-annual sale of the New England Society,
August, 1827, at 1914 cents per yard. This was an entirely new article,
and so well did it take, that the treasurer of the company signed a contract
for the entire product of the mill on this fabric for six months.
In 1830 a third mill was erected about equal in capacity to the two
former buildings. In 1831 Mr. Batchelder resigned, to the regret of the
shareholders, owing to friction between himself and the treasurer, Mr.
Eben Appleton. He was urged by Mr. Batchelder Jackson and Mr. Nathan
Appleton to withdraw his resignation, but feeling that he could not work
OF THE UNITED STATES 423
in harmony with the leading parties he refused to do so. He was succeeded
by Mr. John Avery, who had been a paymaster in the Waltham Mills and
agent of Appleton Mills, which latter position he left to assume the super-
intendency of the Hamilton Mills.
In 1845 the company was operating 22,140 spindles and 608 looms in
the three mills, with an output of 110,000 yards of cloth weekly; it em-
ployed 650 females and 250 males, and consumed 42,000 pounds of cot-
ton weekly. In 1846 a fourth mill was built, and another in 1847.
During the War of the Rebellion, the Hamilton Mills substituted woolen
machinery for a great part of their cotton machinery, and began the manu-
facture of fine woolen goods, paying an abnormally high price for the raw
material. With peace came a declension of "war prices," and the conse-
quent loss to the company resulted in years of struggles and of low divi-
dends.
In 1864 Oliver H. Moulton, who had been overseer in the Pemberton
Mills, Lawrence, Mass., and superintendent of the Amoskeag Mills, Man-
chester, N. H., succeeded Mr. Avery as agent of the Hamilton Mills. In
1865 the Hamilton Company was operating five mills, containing 51,268
spindles and 1,348 looms, employing 850 females and 425 males, and con-
suming 50,000 pounds of cotton and 10,000 pounds clean wool weekly in
producing 235,000 yards of delaines, flannels, prints, tickings, sheetings and
shirtings made from yarns Nos. 10 to 53.
In 1881 an addition was built on Mill No. 2; in 1882 a new six-story
mill was built, and in 1883 a mill 150 x 50 feet was built, this being four
stories high when completed. In July, 1895, a new storehouse was added;
and in 1910 the company in its six mills operated 89,024 ring spindles,
29,236 mule spindles, 2,550 looms, power being furnished by ten turbine
water wheels and forty-one engines of 2,600 horse-power.
The Hamilton Mills consisted of two departments — the one for manu-
facture of cotton and woolen cloths, the other for printing of calicoes.
In 1828 a print works was built, and William Spencer came from
England to superintend it ; he was an expert, and had had charge of print
works in Ireland. He held the position for thirty-four years, then was
succeeded by William Hunter, who had come from England four years
previously to become overseer of the color shop of the Hamilton Print
Works. In 1866 William Harley, who came from Scotland and had
worked at Southbridge, came to Lowell, where he was superintendent of
the Hamilton Print Works for ten years. In 1876 Thomas Walsh, who
had been an overseer in the printing room, was advanced to the superin-
tendency of the print works. On June 25, 1910, the print works depart-
ment of the Hamilton Manufacturing Co. was by sale transferred to the
Pacific Mills.
The officers of the Hamilton Mills from their inception have been :
Presidents, P. T. Jackson, 1825-1831 ; Geo. W. Lyman, 1831-1833; Wm.
424 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Appleton, 1833-1852; Ignatius Sargent, 1852-1859; Wni. Appleton, 1859-
1860; Josiah G. Abbott, 1860-1863; Geo. W. Lyman, 1863, one month; Jno.
A. Burnham, 1863, five months; Nathan A. Tufts, 1863-64, six months;
Samuel Batchelder, 1864-1870; Hocum Hosford, 1871 ; James Longley,
1871. Treasurers, Wm. Appleton, 1825-1830; Ebenezer Appleton, 1830-
1833; Geo. W. Lyman, 1833-1839; Thomas G. Gary, 1839-1859; Wm. B.
Bacon, 1859-1861 ; Arthur T. Lyman, 1861-1863; Arthur L. Devens, 1863-
1867; Eben Bacon, 1867-1869; Samuel Batchelder, 1869, three months; Geo.
R. Chapman, 1870, six months; Jas. A. Dupee, 1870-1886; James Longley,
1886, one month; Chas B. Amory, 1886-1909; Arthur T. Sharp, 1909.
Agents, Samuel Batchelder, 1825-1831 ; John Avery, 1831-1864; O. H.
Moulton, 1864-1905; Clarence N. Childs, 1905. Superintendents of Print
Works, Wm. Spencer, 1828-1862; Wm. Hunter, 1862-1866; Wm. Harley,
1866-1876; Thomas Walsh, 1876-1907; H. S. Duckworth, 1907. Assistant
Treasurers, Arthur R. Sharp, 1902-1903; Franklin D. Williams, 1903-1909.
The officers of the company in 1910 vi'ere: James Longley, president;
Arthur R. Sharp, treasurer; C. N. Childs, agent.
Messrs. J. M. Beebe & Co. were selling agents for the Hamilton
Manufacturing Co. from 1865-1866, Messrs. Frothingham & Co. from
1866-1873, and Messrs. Joy, Langdon & Co. from 1873-1909. Messrs.
Wellington, Sears & Co. then became the distributors.
WHITIN MACHINE WORKS.
Whitin Machine Works, Whitinville, Mass., originated with John C.
Whitin in 1830, at the time he was in charge of the machinery repairs of
the cotton mill conducted by his father, Col. Paul Whitin ; his brother,
Paul Whitin, Jr., and himself in partnership. Being dissatisfied with the
picker in use, he determined to improve it, and in less than two years had
the improved machine at work. He secured a patent in 1832, and the
demand for this machine from other manufacturers determined Mr. Whitin
to manufacture the "Whitin Improved Picker" for sale. To manufacture
the machines he turned the picker room of the old Northbridge Manufac-
turing Company, 40 x 32 feet, into a workshop, and in this old brick build-
ing the business of the Whitin Machine Works began. Machinery and
tools were set up in it and put in operation. They were crude as com-
pared with what were later used, yet with the improved devices of Mr.
Whitin, pickers or lappers were produced so superior to those previously
in use that, from 1834, when the first machine was sold, the demand stead-
ily increased. For many years most of the pickers in use throughout the
country were made at these works.
'^
JAMES H LAMB Co
OF THE UNITED STATES 425
The firm was encouraged to build other machinery in the same hne,
the list gradually increasing, so as to include cards, card-grinders, doublers,
railway heads, drawing frames, ring spinning frames, spoolers, warpers,
dressers, looms and combers ; indeed, all the machinery used in cotton mills,
except mules and slashers and finishing machinery. The aim was to im-
prove every machine to the utmost. The spindle was improved by the in-
vention of the "Gravity" spindle. The invention of the Whitin union
card, for which Mr. Whitin obtained a patent in 1862, was followed by
that of the revolving flat card, and the common loom by the dobby loom.
The comber has been so improved as to make its production nearly double
that of any other, giving the Whitin Works a practical monopoly of this
branch of the business. The Whitin picker, after fifty years of profitable
manufacture, was taken from the list and its manufacture discontinued.
To accommodate their rapidly increasing business, the original shop was
enlarged and new buildings were erected. In 1847 the firm built the "New
Shop," three hundred and six by one hundred and two feet, two stories,
and basement on the south side. This was then said to be the largest ma-
chine shop in New England. After that date many new buildings and
additions to old ones were made, until, in 1910, there were twenty acres
of floor space, all connected, and a foundry floor of more than two acres,
there being an accommodation for three thousand men in the works. The
machine shop was the property of the firm of P. Whitin & Sons until the
firm was dissolved in 1864. From i860 to 1864 John C. Whitin spent much
of his time in Holyoke, where he had purchased and was conducting the
Holyoke Machine Works, and Charles P. Whitin had charge of the "Whitin
Machine Shop." On the dissolution of the firm of P. Whitin & Sons in
1864, John C. Whitin took the manufacturing of machinery, which had
grown from the production of one picker a month in the "Old Picker
House" to the production of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of
machinery of a large variety every year in the large shop of 1847 s'""! 'ts
adjuncts. On coming into his sole proprietorship, ]\Ir. Whitin erected a
new shop parallel with the shop of 1847, north of it, four hundred and
seventy-five feet, with three stories and a basement.
Mr. Whitin secured patents on the Whitin improved picker in 1833
and on the union card in 1862. These machines proved useful to the manu-
facturers and profitable to the inventor.. His inventions, however, bore
no comparison in intrinsic value to the many improvements he made in tools
and implements for working metals, or to the simplifying of existing
methods. As long as he continued in the active management of the shop,
he took the greatest interest in all improvements in tools. The last ma-
chine to which he gave special attention was for drilling spinning- frame
rails, completing the two of a set for a spinning-frame at one operation.
It was with him a principle never to seek the protection and profit of a
426 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
patent for any tool he was to use himself. He felt that the gain in his own
work was all the profit he should desire.
In 1870 the business which had been for the six previous years in the
sole proprietorship of John C. Whitin was organized into a joint stock
corporation under the name of "The Whitin Machine Works ;" John C.
Whitin, president; Josiah Lasell, treasurer, and Gustavus E. Taft, super-
intendent. Mr. Lasell was Mr. Whitin's son-in-law, and had been in
his employ since i860. In 1881 Mr. Taft became agent and Harvey Ellis
superintendent. On Mr. Whitin's death, April 22, 1882, Mr. Lasell be-
came president and treasurer. On Jan. i, 1886, Mr. Lasell's son-in-
law, G. Marston Whitin, became treasurer. On the death of JMr. Lasell,
March 15, 1886, his oldest son, Chester W. Lasell, was made president. On
the death of Mr. Taft, June 24, 1888, his oldest son, Cyrus A. Taft, was
made agent, and continued in this office several years. On the death of
Harvey Ellis in 1891, W. L. Taft, second son of Gustavus E. Taft, suc-
ceeded to the superintendent's office. In 1897 he was succeeded by Albert
H. Whipple. The officers in 191 1 were: Chester W. Lasell, president; G.
Marston Whitin, treasurer; Kent Swift, assistant treasurer, and Albert H.
Whipple, superintendent. Thus have these machine works, which Mr.
Whitin began in 1832 in a room thirty-two by forty feet, grown to a plant
with twenty-six acres of floor space, with a foundry of more than three acres
of floor. Three thousand skilled mechanics were able, through improve-
ments in tools and machines, to accomplish as much as five thousand could
have accomplished in the beginning. Slow plodding oxen at first carried
the product to the market. In 191 1 cars from all parts of the country came
into the freight house located on their own premises, propelled by elec-
tricity, for zvhich purpose the first electric freight motor ever constructed
zvas built. The first shop used but a portion of the water power at com-
mand, but in 191 1 the works were using all of that power, much increased
by reservoirs, and steam engines of 3,000 horse-power have been added,
which run a powerful dynamo, giving electrical power, readily transmitted
without shafting to any part of the works. The Providence Machine Com-
pany was absorbed by Whitin Machine Works in 1909. (See \'olume 2.)
THE IDENTITY OF THE WHITIN FAMILY WITH COTTON MANUFACTURING.
BY REV. JOHN R. THURSTON.
In 1808 Northbridge was smitten with the cotton factory fe\'er, which
was then widely spread in the New England States, as Seth Wheaton, of
Providence, who initiated the cotton manufacturing at Blackstone. wrote
to his brother at Washington, Aug. 20, 1809, "More than fifty mills are
now erecting. in the New England States for this brand only." This in-
terest in cotton manufacture, which extended as far south as Delaware, is
due not only to the invention of machinery for spinning and weaving, and
this by "power," but especially to the invention of the cotton gin by Eli
OF THE UNITED STATES 42/
Whitney in 1792, by which "more cotton could be separated in a day from
the seed, by the labor of a single hand, than could be done in the usual
manner in the space of many months." This reduced the price of cot-
ton so that it could be a rival of wool and flax, which heretofore had al-
most alone furnished the material for textile fabrics for the people.
In 1809 Col. Paul Whitin erected a cotton mill at the upper dam
which was about three hundred feet east of the present dam of the Whitin
Machine Works. Col. James Fletcher, the father-in-law of Mr. Whitin,
contributed the water power as his share in the enterprise. After the
erection of the mill, Mr. Whitin organized a company, of which he was
the principal stockholder, for the manufacture of cotton goods, styled "The
Northbridge Cotton Manufacturing Company," but the act of incorporation
was not obtained until June 9, 1814. From the names of the incorporators,
Paul Whitin, James Fletcher, Phinney Earle, Silas Timothy, and Charles and
John Sabin and Joel Lackey, it is evident that Mr. Whitin had obtained
the co-operation of men from other towns. This was the third cotton
mill erected in the Blackstone Valley, above Pawtucket — the mill of Almy
Brown and the Slaters preceding it by three years at Slatersville, and the
original mill of the Blackstone Co., at Blackstone, preceding it by one year.
The manufacture consisted in breaking, carding and spinning. The raw
material, having some seeds and much dirt mixed with it, was put out to
families to have these removed, as "pickers" had not yet been introduced.
Some families took a bale, some half a bale, and some less. For this
work four to six cents a pound was paid. After carding and spinning, the
yarn was given out to families to be woven by hand, the weavers receiving
eight cents per yard for weaving No. 16 yarn, which was the grade made
at that time. The weaving was done in this manner for six or eight years,
when the power loom was introduced. The original Northbridge Mill was
of wood, and had a capacity of 1,500 spindles. Paul Whitin, Jr., then ten
years of age, commenced work in this mill on the day of its starting, tend-
ing the breaking machine. The mill was operated several years with small
returns. It was rented for two years to Gladding and Cady, and was sold
in 1824 to William & Thomas Buffom. It was bought in 1829 by Samuel
Shove, who operated it until 1831.
In 1815 Colonel Whitin, not content with what he was doing in the
Northbridge Cotton Manufacturing Company, entered into partnership with
Colonel James Fletcher and his two sons, under the firm name of "Whftin
and Fletcher," and they fitted up "The Old Forge" building on the south
side of the river, a few hundred feet below the mill of the "Northbridge
Co.," for a cotton mill of 300 spindle capacity for the manufacture of yarns.
This mill was operated under this partnership until 1828, when Mr. Whitin,
who owned a one-half interest, purchased the other half of the Fletchers'
and formed a new partnership with his sons, Paul, Jr., and John C, under
the name of P. Whitin & Sons, for the manufacture of cotton goods.
428 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Paul Whitin, Jr., was at this time twenty-seven years of age. His
previous training had been mercantile, and in the business of the new
firm he took charge of the mercantile and financial department. John C.
Whitin, then nineteen years old, had had his training in the mill and in
the machine room of the Northbridge Cotton Manufacturing Co., and was
thus prepared for his department of the new firm, the management of the
manufacturing and mechanical departments. Mr. Paul Whitin, Sr., merely
invested capital and had no personal care or responsibility in the manage-
ment of the business.
The company erected on the site of the "Old Forge" mill a new build-
ing of brick, thirty-two by sixty feet, two stories, with attic room and
basement, equipped with 1,500 spindles, this mill being used for its original
purpose until 1845.
Soon after the erection of this mill by P. Whitin & Sons, cotton manu-
facture was begun in another part of the town. As early as June 14, 1814,
"The Northbridge Cloth Manufacturing Co.," for the manufacture of cot-
ton and woolen cloth, had obtained an act of incorporation, the in-
corporators being Levi Lincoln, Antipas and Jesse Eddy, Amasa Roberts,
Timothy Earle, David Waldo, Wm. Hendricks and Silas Earle, most of
whom did not reside in the town. Their mill was erected at the water
privilege in what is now known as Riverdale, on the Blackstone River. The
mills built prior to that being on the Mumford River, a branch of the
Blackstone, in what is now Whitinsville. But cotton cloth was not made
until 1 83 1, when the property came under the control of Sylvanus Hol-
brook. Li 1830 he erected a mill on the east side of the river and fitted
it with cotton machinery, and began to make sheetings. In 1832 Mr. Hol-
brook built at the "Upper Village," on the "Blackstone," now "Rockdale,"
"The Cotton Mill," north of the old woolen mill, and began the manu-
facture of sheetings and drillings, and in 1836 one-third of the looms were
put upon print cloths. In 1837, having discontinued the manufacture of
satinets, Mr. Holbrook put cotton machinery into the "Woolen Mill" and
made Kentucky jeans, until the mill was burned in 1839 or 1840. He then
rebuilt it, filled it with cotton machinery and manufactured cotton goods.
In 1846 the North or "Cotton Mill," the first to be built in Rockdale, was
burned. Mr. Holbrook repaired the walls and floors, but never installed
the machinery. In 185 1 fire destroyed all the factory buildings but this,
as well as a large number of dwellings. This closed all manufacturing in
this village until 1856, when the property was bought by the firm of P.
Whitin & Sons.
We now return to Whitinsville. In 1831, Col. Paul Whitin having
died, the firm was reorganized, Mrs. Paul Whitin, Sr., and her sons, Paul,
John C. and Charles P. being the partners. Charles P. Whitin had been
employed in the office of the old firm, and had attained his majority the
previous year. In the new firm Mr. Paul Whitin retained the mercantile
OF THE UNITED STATES 429
and financial departments, Mr. Charles P. Whitin took charge of the cot-
ton manufacturing, and Mr. John C. Whitin took charge of the new de-
partment, the building of cotton machinery. The old Northbridge Cotton
Manufacturing Company's Mill was bought by the firm and put into opera-
tion, and so continued until 1861. In 1845 the "Stone Mill" was built, with
a capacity of 7,500 spindles.
In 1847 ^^Ir. James F. Whitin, the youngest son of Col. Paul Whitin,
who for many years had had charge of the books of the concern, was ad-
mitted to the firm.
In 1849 the Whitins bought up the capital stock of the "Uxbridge
Cotton Mill" of 10,000 spindle capacity in North Uxbridge, which they
operated until the firm was dissolved in 1864. In 1856, having purchased
the property in Rockdale, used by Mr. Holbrook and others for manufac-
turing cotton goods, they built the new Rockdale Mill, with a capacity of
10,000 spindles. About 1857 they bought the stone cotton mill in East
Douglas, of about 8,000 spindle capacity, and operated it until the war.
In 1864 the firm of P. Whitin & Sons, manufacturers of cotton goods
and cotton machinery, which had been founded in 1826, was dissolved, and
the business was divided. The cotton manufacturing which had increased
from 1,500 spindles to 36,500 was divided, Mr. Paul Whitin taking the mill
at Rockdale and the mill property at Riverdale, which P. Whitin & Sons
had purchased the year before; Mr. Charles P. Whitin, the mills in Whit-
insville and in East Douglas ; Mr. James F. Whitin, the mill in Uxbridge,
and Mr. John C. Whitin, the manufacturing of cotton machinery.
At this time the Paul Whitin Manufacturing Co. was formed, with
Mr. Paul Whitin as president and his son, Charles E. Whitin, as agent. To
the Rockdale Mill this company soon added the mill at Riverdale, putting
an addition to the stone building which had been occupied by Mr. Harvey
Waters for the manufacture of scythes and bayonets, and filling it with
cotton machinery, making it a mill of 7,000 spindles. They operated this
mill until it was burned in 1889.
In 1884, on the death of Mr. Paul Whitin, Mr. Charles E. Whitin be-
came treasurer. His eldest son, Mr. Henry T. Whitin, had become super-
intendent in 1870. When the mill in Riverdale was burned, the company
did not rebuild it, but concentrated all their business at Rockdale, making
an addition to their mill built in 1850 of more than 12,000 spindles; another
addition was made in 1893, and another in 1895-6, and then the mill had
55,000 spindles and 1,500 looms, many of which are of the Jacquard pat-
tern. The product of the mill is fine fancy weaving from Cong Staple cot-
ton and silk from thread from No. 40 to No. 120.
Mr. Charles P. Whitin enlarged the stone mill at Whitinsville, making
its capacity 13,300 spindles. In 1866 he united his two elder sons, Edward
and William H., with him in the business, under the name of The Whitins-
ville Cotton Mills. The same year he, with his brother, Mr. James F.
430 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Whitin, built the mill at Linwood of 15,000-spindle capacity under the firm
name of Whitin Brothers.
Irt 1881 Mr. Whitin purchased the mill property at Saundersville and
renovated it by putting in new machinery. The capacity is 13,600 spindles.
This same year his youngest son, Arthur F., was taken into the firm. In
1887 Mr. Charles P. Whitin died. After his death the business was con-
tinued by his three sons. Since the death of William H., in 1893, the
surviving sons, Edward and Arthur F., have conducted the business. In
1895 they, with their uncle, James F. Whitin, enlarged the Linwood Mill,
making its capacity 26,500 spindles. After the death of Mr. James F.
Whitin, Mr. Edward and his brother Arthur F. bought the interest of
his son, Albert H., in the Einwood Mill and the one-quarter interest of
his grandson Frederick. The products of the Whitinsville and Linwood
and Saundersville Mills are fine cambrics, sateens and shirtipgs.
Mr. James F. Whitin. on the dissolution of the firm of P. Whitin
& Sons, took the mill at North Uxbridge. The next year, with his brother,
Charles P., he built the mill at Linwood under the firm name of W'hitin
Brothers, and enlarged it in 1895. In 1900 he enlarged the North Uxbridge
Mill, making its capacity 17,000 spindles. After his death in 1902 this mill
came into the possession of his grandsons, Frederick B. and James F.
Whitin, the latter, James E. Whitin, becoming sole owner and president.
The product is fine sheetings and shirtings.
This family has been continually engaged in the coctton industry for
ninety-eight years. Colonel Paul Whitin began in 1809 with several others
in a mill of 1,500 spindles. But this mill never had success until it came
into his sole possession and control. The family now own and control
five mills, with an aggregate of nearly 125,000 spindles. Three of these
are in the town in which they began this work; two are in adjacent towns.
Early in their history they engaged in the manufacture of cotton ma-
chinery. This continued in one branch of the family, and is employing
nearly 2,000 hands, is now one of the largest cotton machinery manufac-
turing concerns in the country, and is enlarging its plant very greatly.
Some facts may account for this steady growth and success. They have
given their personal attention and best energies to their business. They
have always paid those whom thej' employed promptly. They have in-
vested in their business only their own capital, preferring to let enlarge-
ment of plant wait until they could make it with their own rather than to
use the capital of other parties. They have always resided where their
business has been carried on, which has enabled them to give their own
supervision to it, and they have always taken interest and pride in the
welfare of the commvmity, as is seen by the excellent public buildings, good
roads, good schools and a good library free to all, while their employees
have always been treated with the utmost consideration and generosity,
many of them remaining in the Whitin employ for thirty or forty years.
OF THE UNITED STATES 43i
From 1826 to 1884 the various interests of the Whitin family were
conducted under the name of P. Whitin & Sons, and the manufacture of
cotton machinery became an important part of the business of the firm.
This has been retained by one branch of the family, and under the name
of the Whitin Machine Works has become one of the largest manufac-
turers of cotton machinery in the country. Thus for ninety-six years has
this family been identified with the cotton industry.
THE LUDLOW MANUFACTURING ASSOCIATES.
The jnte and hemp works of the Ludlow Manufacturing Associates
at Ludlow, Mass., were originally started at Braintree, Mass., in 1848,
by Charles T. Hubbard, then junior partner in the old firm of Sewall, Day
& Co. In 1S52 a company was incorporated with the following list of
shareholders: Benjamin Sewall, iti share.'-.; Closes Day, iii shares; Moses
Sewall, 74 shares; Charles T. Hubbard, 74 shares; M. D. Ross, 50 shares;
Dean Randall, 50 shares; David S. Roberts, 30 shares.
From 1848 until his death, in 1887, Mr. Charles T. Hubbard was
the treasurer and managing head of the business. In 1865 Cranmore N.
Wallace, returning from four years' service in the Union Army, entered
the mill as office clerk; in 1884 he became the selling agent, and later was
made president of the company. In 1868 Mr. Hubbard, acting for various
creditors of the Ludlow Mills Company, bought the property in Ludlow,
Springfield and Wilbraham, Mass., where the present (1911) mills are
located. The business was reorganized under the name of the Ludlow
Manufacturing Company, ]\Ir. Hubbard being chosen as treasurer, while
Mr. Lemuel H. Brigham, agent, under the old management, was retained
in his former position.
The property consisted of some old stone mills, dating back to about
1830; also a small one and a half story wooden cotton mill, and a small
machine shop. This cotton mill was operated for the production of seam-
less cotton bags until its destruction by fire a few years later.
The Boston Flax Mills in Braintree, Mass., had, in 1878, grown bv
small additions into a conglomeration of small detached mills with old-
fashioned and inadequate power equipment, and it was seen that the mills
must be rebuilt entirely or the business be moved to another location. Mr.
Hubbard then arranged to sell the good will and machinery of the Flax
Mills to the Ludlow Manufacturing Company. For the reception of this
machinery the Ludlow Company built a new mill and dug a canal to operate
its wheel. In 1881 Mr. John E. Stevens was appointed superintendent in
charge of the manufacturing. He had served an apprenticeship in the shops
432 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
of Peter- Fairbairn (now Fairbairn-Macpherson), of Leeds, England. He
then acted as superintendent of a flax mill in Russia, but later returned to
the Fairbairns, and at the time of his coming to Ludlow was their con-
tinental selling agent, located in Dresden, Saxony. In 1837 Charles T.
Hubbard, the founder of the business and its treasurer, died, and was suc-
ceeded by his son, Charles W. Hubbard, a graduate of Harvard, Class
of '78, and in the same year Mr. L. H. Brigham, the agent, resigned, and
was succeeded by Mr. Stevens. From 1887 until the death of Mr. Stevens,
in 1905, the managing officers of the company were : Charles W. Hubbard,
treasurer ; Cranmore N. Wallace, selling agent ; John E. Stevens, manu-
facturing agent. After the death of Mr. Stevens he was succeeded by his
son, Mr. Sidney Stevens, a graduate of the Harvard Scientific School. Class
of 1900, who had served for four years as his father's assistant in the mills.
Of the original property purchased in 1868 only the church and a
few tenement houses remain. The plant extends (1911) almost a mile
along the banks of the Chicopee River, with a total fall of ninety-two
feet, developing about ten thousand horse-power, the larger part of it with
electric drive ; there are seventeen acres of floor space, twelve acres of
warehouse floors, ten miles of water mains and eight miles of tracks
operated by four locomotives.
The mills manufactured jute bagging for covering cotton, jute and
hemp carpet yarns, twines and marlines, upholsterers' webbing, binder,
twine and cordage, and also machinery for its own mills. The productive
capacity of the mills was one hundred million pounds yearly. The capital
was four million dollars. Because of the limited powers formerly granted
by the incorporation laws of Massachusetts, it was found desirable to
organize the business under the form of a trust agreement, by which the
conduct of the business was placed in the hands of nine trustees, under
the title of the Ludlow Manufacturing Associates.
The management in 191 1 occupied an office at 55 Congress Street,
Boston, and did its own selling. Cranmore N. Wallace was the president
and selling agent ; Charles W. Hubbard, treasurer and secretary, and Sidney
Stevens, manufacturing agent.
The history of the Ludlow Associates would be incomplete without
a reference to the improvements wrought by them in Ludlow. The vil-
lage, at the time they purchased the mills there, consisted of two country
roads, with a few very old tenement houses, a single-room schoolhouse and
a church owned by the company. The nearest railway was the Boston and
Albany, a mile away ; later on the Springfield and Athol was built through
the village and a spur track was laid to the mill yard.
About 1878 new streets were laid out and constructed by the company,
a number of new cottages were built by them, and a six-room schoolhouse
to accommodate the increasing number of scholars. The company has since
built all the sewers and supplied the village with water and electricity.
1
^^
OF THE UNITED STATES 433
From this small beginning a beautiful town has sprung up, with six or
seven miles of good streets macadamized, and with concrete gutters and
concrete curbing to the sidewalks. The company at this writing (1911)
owns 558 cottages and tenements, most of which contain from five to seven
rooms and rent for from six to twelve dollars a month, nearly all being
fitted with baths. A model boarding house for girls is maintained by
the company, and a hospital building has also been provided. The town
possesses a handsome library known as the Hubbard Memorial Library,
which was erected as a memorial by the widow and children of the late
Charles T. Hubbard. The social life and amusements of the village have
their home in the beautiful building known as the Stevens Memorial Hall,
built by the Ludlow Manufacturing Associates in 1905-6, as a tribute to the
memory of Mr. John E. Stevens, by whom the institution of this clubhouse
had been planned, though on simpler lines. The building in 191 1 was in
charge of the Ludlow Athletic and Recreation Association, which at that
time had over 800 members, was self-supporting and was managed by a
board of directors, including both men and women. There is an entrance
at each end of the building, one being for the men and the other for the
girls. The basement of the Stevens Memorial Hall is divided into a
large bowling room, a swimming tank with shower, and tub baths, a men's
locker room at one side and a girls' on the other. The tank was used
on alternate days by the two sexes, the girls and boys enjoying all the
privileges and capable instructors being employed to teach them to swim.
On the first floor is the girls" parlor, with appropriate furnishings ;
including a piano. Next comes the men's recreation room with six pool
tables, bought and paid for by the association. Then conies the reading and
smoking room, where current magazines and technical papers are on file.
Up another flight of stairs is the main hall, with stage and gallery. This
hall is used for a gymnasium, for dancing parties and for dramatic
and other entertainments. In addition, the building contains six club or
class rooms, where instruction is given in cooking, dressmaking and
millinery.
DANA WARP MILLS.
Dana Warp Mills are located in Westbrook, Maine. The mills take
their name from Woodbury Kidder Dana, a sketch of whose life appears
in this volume. In the year 1866 Mr. Dana formed a partnership with
Thomas McEwan, and, as Dana & McEwan, they began the manufacture
of cotton warps at Saccarappa Falls, on the Presumpscot River, in the town
of Westbrook, Maine.
After Mr. McEwan's early withdrawal, and except for three years,
434 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
when in partnership with his brother, Frank J. Dana, as W. K. Dana &
Co., Mr. Dana continued in the business alone until 1892, when the present
corporation was organized under the name of Dana Warp Mills, its capital
stock in 191 1 being $130,000 and its officers as follows: President, Lyman
M. Cousens ; treasurer and general manager, Woodbury K. Dana ; super-
intendent, Philip Dana ; assistant superintendent, Luther Dana ; directors,
Lyman M. Cousens, Woodbury K. Dana, Philip Dana.
From 720 spindles, in 1866, the mill grew to a thoroughly equipped
plant of 40,000 ring spindles, 1,200 twister spindles and 40 looms for
seamless grain bags, about 550 bales of cotton being used monthly and
about 400 hands employed. The mill is modern in every respect, in
equipment, heating, lighting and in conveniences for employees. It has
its own model dyehouse, is equipped with combers, and spins from eight
to eighty.
In 1900 the corporation purchased the large and well-planned Gingham
Mill, then lying idle. This has been filled with up-to-date machinery, addi-
tions have been made to the building, and to-day the various buildings of
Dana Warp Mills constitute a model plant, as is shown in the accom-
panying full-page illustration.
Dana warps have been favorably known to the trade for forty years.
Men who, out of friendship, perhaps, began to patronize the maker of these
warps in the sixties, are to-day his best customers, simply because ex-
perience has shown them that the product shipped them is always standard,
its color fast, its count correct and its supply certain. To keep a customer
satisfied for half a century is no mean test of the value of goods supplied
him. Mr. Dana does not believe in obsolete machines or methods ; every-
thing must be strictly up-to-date. The quality of his product is due to
the use of the best-known appliances, skilled labor and intelligent super-
vision. Mr. Lyman M. Cousens, the president of the corporation, is also
its selling agent, and to his business-like methods, his deserved reputation
for fair dealing, and his tireless energy much credit must be given.
THE BOOTT MILLS.
The Boott Cotton Mills, so named in honor of Kirk Boott, were
incorporated at Lowell, Mass., March 27, 1835, by John A. Lowell, Abbott
Lawrence and Nathan Lawrence, with a capital of $1,000,000, which was
increased in 1837 to $1,200,000, divided into 1,200 shares, with a par value
of $1,000. This capital up to 191 1 had not been increased.
The construction of the first four mills of the, company was begun
OF THE UNITED . STATES 435
in 1835, the buildings being erected on the property secured for cotton mill
sites by Lawrence, Lowell, Jackson, Appleton, Boott and their associates.
These four mills and a large boarding house were completed in 1836,
and began operations with Benjamin F. French as the first agent. In
1845 the company operated in its four mills 32,036 spindles, 910 looms,
used 63,000 pounds of cotton weekly in the production of 185,000 yards
of cloth, and it employed 780 female and 130 male operatives. Linus Child
was the second agent, and, in 1862, the stock having depreciated forty per
cent through the conservative management, no improvements having been
made since the mills were built, Mr. William A. Burke was transferred
from the Lowell Machine Shop to the Boott Cotton Mills, to take the
place of Mr. Child as agent, who at once inaugurated an extensive recon-
struction, operations in the mills being suspended for periods of two and
three months in 1861, 1862 and 1863, to allow of rebuilding.
A new mill was built, and in 1865 the company operated 71,324 spindles,
1,878 looms, consuming 100,000 pounds of cotton weekly in the production
of 350,000 yards of drillings, sheetings, shirtings and print cloths, and it
employed 1,020 females and 290 males. At that time the Boott Cotton
Mills spun Nos. 14 to 40 yarns.
The first building of the Boott Cotton Mills was 261x60 feet, five
stories high, and six others of a similar character were eventually added,
the seven mills being built around a quadrangular park for the purpose
of obtaining good light, and of adding to the comfort of the operatives,
the completed plant covering an area of nine acres, part of which is in
Centralville. This plant was, with the exception of the Massachusetts Mills,
the last of the great system of cotton mills of Lowell incorporated by the
Proprietors of Locks and Canals Company. The buildings were equipped
with the latest improved machinery, and the company operated 148,412 spin-
dles, 4,002 looms, and in 1903 produced 800,000 yards of sheetings, shirtings
and printing cloths per week, employing 1,500 females and 478 males,
consuming 250,000 pounds of cotton per week. From 1901 this company
made a large amount of linen goods, consisting principally of towels and
handkerchiefs.
The officers were: Treasurers, John A. Lowell, 1835-48; J. Pickering
Putnam, 1848-58; T. Jeft'erson Coolidge, 1858-65; Richard D. Rogers,
1865-75; Augustus Lowell, 1875-86; Eliot C. Clarke, 1886-1904; A. S.
Covel, 1904-5; Frederick A. Flather, 1905. Agents, Benjamin F. French,
1836-45; Linus Child, 1845-62; William A. Burke, 1862-6S; .Alexander
C. Cumnock, 1868-95; Victor L Cumnock, 1895-96; A. C. Thomas, 1896-
1908; John H. Whitten, 1908-10; E. W. Thomas, 1910.
The officers of the corporation in 1905 were: Arthur T. Lyman, presi-
dent ; A. S. Covel, treasurer ; F. C. Young, clerk ; directors, Arthur T.
Lyman, A. S. Covel, C. F. Young, Jacob Rogers, Charles F. Ayer, Charles
Lowell, Charles F. Adams, 2d, and Arthur Lyman.
436 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
In 1905 the affairs of the Boott Cotton Mills were put into liquidation,
when, to save the industry to the city of Lowell, the mills only were pur-
chased by the Lowell stockholders, and a new company was incorporated
February, 1905, under the title of the Boott Mills, with a capital stock of
$600,000, which was increased to $1,000,000 July i, 1907, to allow expen-
diture for improvements. The number of mills in 1910 were ten, these
being operated by water, steam and electricity. The capacity of the Boott
Cotton Mills in 1909 was 3,500 looms and 160,000 spindles, the number
of spindles in operation at the time of liquidation being 135,000.
The company manufactures coarse, medium and fine gray goods. The
officers of the Boott Mills in 191 1 were as follows : Frank E. Dunbar,
president; Frederick A. Flather, treasurer; Edward W. Thomas, agent;
directors, Charles F. Ayer, Albert F. Bemis, Frank A. Day, Frank E.
Dunbar, Frederick A. Flather, Amasa Pratt, William H. Wellington;
selling agents, Wellington, Sears & Co.
THE PACIFIC MILLS.
Coincident with the laying out by the Lawrences and others in 1850
of the City of Lawrence, Essex County, Massachusetts, on the banks of
the Merrimac, plans for the Pacific Mills were prepared. The chief pro-
moters of the enterprise were .'\bbot Lawrence, William Lawrence, Samuel
Lawrence, John A. Lowell, Francis C. Lowell, Nathan Appleton, Patrick
T. Jackson and other merchants of Boston and Lowell.
The Pacific Mills were incorporated in 1853 with a capital of $1,000,000,
which was increased in 1855, 1858, 1862 and 1900, to its present amount
(1910), $3,000,000, consisting of 3,000 shares of $1,000 each.
The original mills and print works were built by the Essex Company,
under the direction of Captain Charles H. Bigelow, and in 1882 it was
found necessary to remodel them in order to bring them up to a standard
where they could maintain their leading place against the competition of
the best modern mills. Since then they have been enlarged and added
to from time to time until they have become one of the largest textile mill
plants in the United States. When the additions now in progress are
completed, the floor area in the Lawrence plant alone will exceed one hun-
dred acres.
The purpose of the organization was to produce "ladies' dress goods
from wool wholly, from cotton wholly, and from wool and cotton com-
bined." The establishment was to include an aggregation of cotton mills,
woolen mills and print works.
Their products first appeared in the market in 1854. At that time.
OF THE UNITED STATES 437
under a low tariff, English-printed calicoes and printed delaines were
largely in competition with home products, and the contest for supremacy
was sharp, and in the end a victory for the New England factories.
Through the panic of 1857 and the difficulties of war times the com-
pany has passed unscathed, though at times hard pressed, while many of
the largest and strongest mills and merchants were crippled.
The Pacific fabrics have won popularity through their excellence as
to style, quality and durability, and probably no mill is so well known
throughout the country at large as the Pacific Mills. Its chief cotton prod-
ucts are mousselines, chambrays, lawns, organdies, challies, draperies,
satines and crepes. The worsted products are poplins, alpacas, cashmeres,
henriettas, serges, brocades and diagonals. The product of the mills in
1861 was about 11,000,000 yards; in 1865, 45,000,000 yards; in 1906,
100,000,000 yards, and in 1910 about 150,000,000 yards.
There were no purchases of property of great moment between 1864,
when the lower mill property was obtained, and 1909, when the Pacific
Mills bought the Cocheco Manufacturing Company, of Dover, New Hamp-
shire. With the purchase of these mills the Pacific Mills made their first
large expansion by other means than steady growth. These mills were
formidable competitors and they sold through the same selling house. They
were among the earlier cotton mills, their various organizations all ante-
dating that of the Pacific Mills.
The Dover Cotton Factory was incorporated in 1812 with a capital of
$50,000. This was increased in 1821 to $500,000, and again in 1823 to
$1,000,000, and the name was then changed to the Dover Manufacturing
Company. Their first mill was built in 1815 and was a wooden structure.
Neither of these companies was successful, and a new company, the
Cocheco Manufacturing Company, was incorporated in 1827 with a cap-
italization of $1,000,000, which purchased all the works and property of
the Dover Manufacturing Company.
The manufacturing of cloth began under John Williams, the first
agent, and the first calico printing in these works was executed prior to
1880 under the supervision of Dr. A. L. Porter.
At the time the Pacific Mills purchased the Cocheco Manufacturing
Company, January, 1909, Hamilton de Forest Lockwood was the treasurer,
Herbert W. Owen superintendent of the cotton mills, and R. A. S. Reoch
superintendent of the print works, all of whom have remained with the
Pacific Mills, Mr. Lockwood becoming assistant treasurer.
Previous to the consolidation of these two properties, the Cocheco
Manufacturing Company had effected many improvements, and since then
the Pacific Mills have erected several new buildings and added extensively
to the machinery.
Soon after this purchase it was determined to unite the two large
print works, neither of very modern construction, and with this in mind a
438 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
tract of land of about seventeen acres was purchased in South Lawrence.
On this is now being constructed (1911) a print works more than large
enough to handle the work of the two plants in Lawrence and Dover. It will
probably be the largest print works in America, if not in the world.
In 191 1 the printing business of the Hamilton Manufacturing Com-
pany, of Lowell, was purchased, and that is now being combined with the
two other print works and will eventually go with the others to South
Lawrence.
There is also under construction a six-story worsted yarn mill and
a one-story weave-shed to accommodate more than 1,000 worsted looms,
covering in all about four acres. The equipment of the mills, including
the machinery now arranged for, is as follows :
At Lawrence: 184,352 cotton spinning spindles, 90,476 worsted spin-
ning spindles, 3,945 cotton looms, 3,419 worsted looms, 84 worsted cards, 85
worsted combs, 24 printing machines, and there are about 6,900 operatives
employed. At Dover there are 129,248 cotton spinning spindles, 3,104
cotton looms, 16 printing machines and about 2,000 operatives employed.
The payroll of the combined mills is about $3,250,000 per year.
Among those who have so largely contributed to the success of the
Pacific Mills in the past are: Presidents — Hon. Abbot Lawrence, 1853-56;
George W. Lyman, 1856-70; John Amory Lowell, r870-77; Abbot Lawrence,
1877-98; J. Huntington Lowell, 1870-77; Augustus Lowell, six months in
1892, 1893-1900; Arthur T. Lyman, 1900. Treasurers — Jeremiah S. Young,
1853-57; George H. Kuhn, six months, 1855; J. Wiley Edmands, 1855-77;
James L. Little, 1877-80; Henry Saltonstall, 1880-84; George S. Silsbee,
1894-1907; Edwin Farnham Greene, 1907. Clerks — A. H. Clapp, 1853-54;
Henry Davenport, 1854-90; Edward J. Payne, 1890-1910. Selling Houses —
Little, Alden & Co., James L. Little & Co., Lawrence & Co. Agents —
William C. Chapin, 1853-71 ; John Fallon, 1871-81, acting; Samuel Barlow,
1881-1902, of print works; Walter E. Parker, 1881, of mills and print
works. Superintendents Cotton — Joseph D. Burt, A. R. Field, A. M.
Wade, Francis H. Silsbee, William H. McDavitt, Irving Southworth.
Superintendents Printing — John Fallon, Samuel Barlow, Richard Barlow,
Harry Wylde. Superintendents Loiver Mill — Joseph Walworth, Joseph
Stone, Charles T. Main, George Owen, J. T. Lord.
OF THE UNITED STATES 439
UXBRIDGE COTTON MILLS.
Uxbridge Cotton Mills are situated at North Uxbridge, Worcester
County, Massachusetts, on the Mumford branch of the Blackstone River.
The original business was established in 1810 by Benjamin Clapp, who
built a wooden mill there, known as "the Clapp Mill." He was associated
with a Mr. Forbes, and in 1815 they sold out to Mellen & Harvey, who
manufactured cotton thread there for a short time, when the plant and
business passed into the hands of Robert Rogerson, a Boston merchant,
who carried it on until about 1825, when he removed the ancient wooden
building and built in its place a substantial stone factory, and in 1827 erected
near it a second mill, these buildings and machinery costing $250,000 ;
known as the "Crown" and "Eagle'" Mills, operated by R. Rogerson, in part-
nership with Oliver Eldridge under the firm name of R. Rogerson & Co.
In 1830 the business was incorporated as "the Proprietors of the Crown
and Eagle Mills," Mr. Eldridge having retired and been replaced by Handel
Rogerson, who became resident agent of the mills. Mr. Rogerson was
compelled, by the financial crisis of 1837, to yield the property to his
creditors, who organized a new corporation, Dec. 16, 1840, under the
name of the Uxbridge Cotton Mills, with a capital stock of $100,000, which
was later increased to $125,000, Charles W. Cartwright, Henry Hall, James
Read, George Morey, Daniel Denny, Benjamin Humphrey and Benjamin
F. White owning the entire stock. At the first annual meeting, held in
1840, the board of directors chosen were : C. W. Cartwright, Henry Hall,
James Read, Daniel Denny. C. W. Cartwright was elected president
and treasurer and Samuel Hunt clerk.
The business of the Uxbridge Cotton Mills was conducted by the
agents of these owners until 1849, when the property was sold to Paul
Whitin & Sons, of Whitinsville, who used the charter and name of the
Uxbridge Cotton Mills corporation, and at the meeting held May q, 1849, ^
board of directors was chosen including Paul Whitin, John C. Whitin,
James Fletcher Whitin and Charles P. Whitin. John C. Whitin was elected
president: Paul Whitin, treasurer; James F. Whitin, clerk, and Charles E.
Whitin, superintendent.
In 1 85 1 the Whitins increased the capacity of the mills nearly one-
half by the erection of a brick building, 120 feet long and of uniform
width and height with the two granite mills uniting them by spanning the
river with an arch, making the mills, with the intervening structure, 320
feet long. These mills in 1910 were equipped with 17,000 ring spindles,
426 looms, 25 cards, employed in manufacturing sheetings and shirtings,
Collins & Co., of New York, being the selling agents. The power was sup-
plied by water, supplemented by a Corliss cross-compound steam engine.
James E. Whitin, president, treasurer and agent. Collins & Co., New
York, selling agents.
440 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
THE SLATED MILLS.
The Slater Mills are situated at Webster, Mass., and comprise the
H. N. Slater Manufacturing Company, at the north village, employed
in the manufacture of cotton dress goods, checks, lawns, silesias, jaconets,
etc., incorporated 1836; the H. N. Slater Manufacturing Company, at
the east village, manufacturing broadcloths, flannels, tricots and doeskins,
incorporated 1886; the cotton and woolen factory are situated on French
River, and the finishing factory on the outlet from Chaubunnagunganug
Pond. (For sketch of first Slater Mill see illustration, Ibid.)
The town of Webster owes its origin, as well as its fame as a
manufacturing centre, to the purchase by Samuel Slater and Bela Tiffany,
his clerk, in 181 1, of thirteen or fourteen acres of land, partly swamp,
on which was an unfinished dwelling house, a grist mill, a good sawmill,
and a trip-hammer shop situated in an almost deserted region four miles
from Oxford, three miles from Dudley and six and a half miles from
Thompson, Conn. For this property they paid four thousand dollars.
This purchase was followed by others during 1812, including a farm of
two hundred and twenty acres with buildings, nine acres bought of Elijah
Pratt and 260 more acres from various persons. Five-sixths of this property
was owned by Mr. Slater.
Mills were at once built, and in 181 3 Slater and Tiffany began in
what is now the town of Webster, the manufacture of cotton yarn. At
the same time a dye and bleaching house was established and placed under
the management of John Tyson, who had an interest in the Inisiness. ]Mr.
Tyson died in 1821, and his interest passed into the hands of ^Ir. Slater.
Further purchases of land were made by Slater & Tiffany in 1814-15,
but on the 27th of November, 1816, during the depression in manufac-
tures which followed the war of 181 2, Mr. Tift'any sold his interest to
Mr. Slater for $8,400. During the war the company began the manufacture
of broadcloth under the superintendence of Edward Howard, a Yorkshire
man, who had followed the woolen business at home.
Up to 1821 Mr. Slater's business had been conducted solely on a
stream which runs from the pond before mentioned, but in that year,
through Mr. Floward, a location was obtained on French River, where
property was bought at a cost of twelve thousand dollars. In 1822 Mr.
Howard transferred one-half the interest to Mr. Slater for six thousand
dollars, and in that year, while the woolen mill was building, the old woolen
mill was burned. Additional purchases of land were made by Slater
& Howard between 1822 and 1824, including about 425 acres, and still
other purchases were made at later dates.
On the 2d day of January, 1829, Samuel Slater and his sons, George
B. and Horatio Nelson Slater, bought j\Ir. Iloward's interest and, as
Samuel Slater & Sons, became the sole owners of all the property which
!^^'
1 I
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I
OF THE UNITED STATES 44i
had been purchased since 1811, inchiding the water power of Chaubnnna-
gungamog Pond, and all the water power of the French River included in
what is now Webster. During the year following the purchase of the
entire property the firm of Slater & Sons became involved in embarrass-
ments, from which they were soon thoroughly extricated, and the business
has since been conducted on an ever-growing and prosperous footing.
Mr. Samuel Slater died in 1835, and the business was carried on
by George B. and Horatio Nelson Slater until the death of the former
in 1843, from which period until his own decease, in 1888, Mr. H. N.
Slater conducted the business. He was succeeded by his stepson and
nephew, Horatio Nelson Slater, who died Aug. 12, 1899. The woolen
branch of the business, which had been conducted as a corporation under
the name of Slater Woolen Company, was continued, and the cotton mill
at the North Village and Cambric Mill, so-called, at the East Village, were
continued by the executors of the estate. All of the manufacturing prop-
erties were consolidated under corporate management May 2, 1003, bearing
the old firm name of .S. Slater & Sons. The corporation completed a new
weave-shed at the South Village woolen mill, and increased the capacity
of the cotton mill at the North Village and of the converting mill at the
East Village. At this latter plant a new mill was also built and equipped
for the finishing of goods in "fast black." In October, 1908, the corpora-
tion acquired the machinery for the manufacture of worsteds formerly
owned by the Excelsior Mills, at Farnumsville' and manufactures worsteds
there under the name of Wuskanut Mills.
DARTMOUTH MANUFACTURING CORPORATION.
DartmoutJi Manufacturing Corporation, of New Bedford, Bristol
County, Massachusetts, with four mill buildings located on the Acushnet
River and New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, was organized
in 1895 by James W. Allen and Abbott P. Smith for the manufacture of
fine cotton goods, and was duly incorporated under the laws of the Com-
monwealth of Massachusetts the same year. The capital stock of the cor-
poration being fixed in the charter as $600,000, divided into 6,000 shares
of one hundred dollars each. The first mill (No. i) was erected in 1896,
and was 821 feet long, 100 feet wide and two and three stories high, built
of brick and equipped with Corliss and Harris steam engines. The 226,868
square feet of floor space in this mill building accommodated 27,000 ring
spindles and 33,000 mule spindles, which 60,000 spindles supplied yarn
to the 1,400 looms, also housed in the mill, producing fine cotton goods in
plain and fancy weaves.
442 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Rufus A. Soule was the first president of the mill, James W. Allen was
treasurer and Walter H. Langshaw agent from the formation of the enter-
prise. The Board of Directors comprised Rufus A. Soule, Chas. E. Riley,
Stephen A. Jenks, Abbott P. Smith, Thomas H. Knowles, Gilbert Allen,
Thomas B. Tripp, Frederic Taber, Nath'l B. Kerr, Clarence A. Cook, Arnold
Schaer and James W. Allen. Mr. Langshaw was elected a director of the
corporation in 1898, succeeding ]\Ir. Schaer. In December, 1900, the propo-
sition made by Mr. Langshaw to build a new mill, doubling the capacity,
was opposed by a majority of the directors. This brought about a contro-
versy between Mr. Langshaw and President Soule, which resulted in a
division of the board of four to five, and Mr. Langshaw was discharged
as agent in June, 1901, notwithstanding his supporters represented the
majority of stock. Two months later, at the annual meeting in August, a
board of directors, comprised of Chas. E. Riley, Walter H. Langshaw,
James W. Allen, Geo. S. Homer, John Duff, A. Martin Pierce and Stephen
A. Jenks, was elected, and the members of the old board, who had been
opposed to building a new mill, were defeated. At a meeting of the direc-
tors, after the annual meeting of the stockholders, Chas. E. Riley was
elected President and Mr. Langshaw was reinstated as agent. Work was
begun on plans for a new mill, and in October of the same year the plans
were approved and contracts made for buildings necessary to double the
capacity of the plant.
One of the new buildings was a weave shed 804 feet long by 200 feet
wide. The capital stock was not increased, but twenty-year bonds were
issued for $500,000, carrying interest at the rate of four per cent. On the
completion of new mill, Mr. Hatton Langshaw was appointed superin-
tendent.
In February, 1906, a difference of opinion arose between President
Riley and Agent Langshaw, the two largest owners in the corporation, as
to the future policy of the concern which brought about a contest for the
control of the stock, which resulted in Mr. Langshaw and his associates
securing the control of the stock and in the election of a board comprising
Walter H. Langshaw, James W. Allen, George S. Homer, John Duff,
Lloyd S. Swain, Stephen A. Jenks and Leroy Fales, the latter being elected
in the place of Mr. Riley. At a subsequent meeting of the directors, Mr.
Langshaw was elected president. During the contest, a voting trust was
formed pooling a majority of the ."^tock for a period of ten rio) years,
and Messrs. Thomas H. Knowles and Oliver F. Brown were appointed
trustees.
During the year 1906 a new two-story building was completed, in
which there were installed about a thousand looms, and in 191 1 the plant
consisted of five buildings — a five-story cotton house and four buildings
used for manufacturing purposes, and during the period from 1006 to
191 1 the mill increased from 60,000 spindles and 1.500 looms to 200,000
OF THE UNITED STATES 443
spindles and 5,700 looms, containing 59,400 ring and 67,200 mule spindles
and 4,150 looms, manufacturing plain, jacquard and fancy cotton fabrics
and novelties comprised of cotton and silk.
DWIGHT MANUFACTURING CO.
Dwight Manufacturing Company, located at Chicopee, Hampden
County, Mass., on the Chicopee River and Boston & Maine Railroad, was
organized by Thomas M. Perkins, William Sturgis and Edmund Dwight,
"for the purpose of manufacturing cotton goods." The business was in-
corporated under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Feb.
6, 1 84 1, as the Dwight Manufacturing Company, with a capital stock
of $500,000. Samuel Cabot was the first president of the corporation,
serving 1841-59; James G. Mills served as the first treasurer, 1841-53,
and William F. Otis as the first clerk of the corporation, 1841-45. In
1844 the capital stock of the corporation was increased to $700,000. The
original mill, erected at Chicopee in 1841, housed 10,000 spindles, the mills
and their capacity being increased as the capital stock was enlarged. In
1845 N. H. Henchman succeeded William F. Otis as clerk of the corpora-
tion, and in 1853 F. H. Story succeeded James G. Mills as treasurer, serv-
ing 1853-66.
In 1856 the corporation, in order to absorb the Perkins Mills, which,
in 1852, had consolidated with the Cabot Manufacturing Company, was
privileged by the legislature of Massachusetts to increase the capital stock
to $1,700,000. In 1859 Thomas J. Allen was elected clerk of the corpora-
tion, serving 1859-87. Ignatius Sargent succeeded Samuel Cabot as presi-
dent in 1859, and served until 1861, when he was succeeded by William
Amory, who served five years. .
In 1866 John A. Burnham was elected president, which office he held
until 1876, his successor being T. JelTerson Coolidge, who served from
1876 to 1892, when he was temporarily succeeded' by Mr. Amory A. Law-
rence. Mr. Coolidge was again elected president in 1893, serving until
July ID, 1905, when Mr. J. Howard Nichols became president. Upon
the death of Mr. Nichols, Sept. 15, 1905, Mr. Coolidge was once more
elected to the office, and served until Oct. 15, 1909, when he resigned and
Mr. Theophilus Parsons became president.
In 1866 Daniel N. Spooner was elected to succeed Mr. F. H. Story
as treasurer, and he remained in that office from 1866 to 1870, when
Charles W. Freeland was elected, serving from 1870 to 1876, his successor
being J. Howard Nichols, who was trea.surer up to July 10, 1905, when
he resigned to become president. July 10, 1905, Mr. Edwin Farnham
444 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
Greene succeeded Mr. Nichols as treasurer, and served until Dec. ii,
1907, when he resigned to assume the treasurership of the Pacific Mills.
Mr. Greene was succeeded, Dec. 11, 1907, by Mr. Ernest Lovering.
In 1866 the capital stock of the Dwight Mfg. Co. was decreased to
$1,500,000, and in 1870 to $750,000; but in 1872 it was increased to
$1,200,000. and in 1894 an increase to $1,800,000 was authorized, though
additional stock had not been issued up to 1910.
In 1894 the charter was amended so as to authorize the corporation
to "manufacture cotton and woolen goods in any part of the United States,"
and in 1896 the first mill owned by the corporation in Alabama was
erected at Alabama City, Etowah County, of which R. A. Mitchell was
made agent and C. H. Moody superintendent, the mill being equipped
with 30,000 ring spindles and 1,000 thirty-six-inch and forty-inch looms for
manufacturing sheetings and drills by steam power. This was supple-
mented by Mill No. 2 in 1898, increasing spindles to 60,000 and looms
to 1,916. In 1901 spindles were increased to 62,000 and looms to 2,000.
The establishment of the Dwight Manufacturing Company in Ala-
bama City transformed that section from an almost unsettled community
into a progressive village or town, with a population composed princi-
pally of the employees of the Dwight Mfg. Co. Great attention was
given to the welfare of these employees. The company built an immense
number of attractive cottages to be rented by operatives at the rate of
from $3 to $5 per month, every house being of a varied style and color,
giving an individual appearance to each home. The work-rooms of the
mills are spacious, high-studded, light and well-ventilated, cooled in the
summer by cold air and warmed in the winter by heated air. blown in
by the ventilating system. In each room free ice water is supplied to all
operatives during the entire year. The company also benefited its em-
ployees by the erection of a two-story brick building, the second story
of which is furnished for the use of the Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights
of Pythias, Red Men Juniors and other fraternal organizations. Mr.
Nichols erected at Alabama City, in memory of his son, Howard Gardner,
who had charge of the erection of the mills in Alabama, a public library
building, the first in the State of Alabama, also a fine church and school-
house for the use of the inhabitants of the village.
The equipment of the mills at Chicopee in 1910 included 165,000
spindles and 4,000 looms, engaged in the manufacture of sheetings, shirt-
ings and dress goods. The number of spindles operated by the corpora-
tion in 1910 totaled 227,000, and looms 60,000. To operate this machinery
requires steam engines and turbines and water wheels aggregating 10,000
horse-power.
In 1910 the officers of the company were as follows: Theophilus Par-
sons, president ; Ernest Lovering, treasurer ; George H. Nutting, clerk of
the corporation ; Louis A. Aumann, agent at Chicopee, Mass. ; M. O.
ARI^IiVGTON MILLS.
Lawrence. Mass.
OF THE UNITED STATES 445
Dean, superintendent at Chicopee, Mass. ; C. H. Moody, agent at Alabama
City, Ala. ; Irving Southwortli, superintendent at Alabama City, Ala., and
Messrs. Minot, Hooper & Co., of New York City, were selling agents for
the entire plant.
ARLINGTON MILLS.
The Arlington Mills are located on the Spicket River, in Lawrence
and Methuen, Essex County, Mass., on the Boston and Alaine Railroad.
A factory for the manufacture of woolens was built in 1865 by Robert
M. Bailey and Joseph Nickerson, who, together with Chas. A. Lombard
and George C. Bosson, were the original proprietors. Within a very short
time the owners purchased the piano-case factory of Abiel Stevens on
the Spicket River, and in 1865 a corporation was formed under the style
of the Arlington Woolen Mills, Robert M. Bailey being elected first presi-
dent. The manufacture of fancy shirting fabrics, flannels and woolen-
felted goods had been carried on about two years, when the entire plant
was destroyed by fire. The capital stock, which at first was only $150,000,
was increased to $200,000, and a new mill was erected on the ruins of
the old piano-case mills and completed early in 1867. Under the stimulus
given by the tarifif of 1866 to the manufacture of worsted goods, the com-
pany diverted the 175 looms and other worsted machinery with which it
was equipped to the production of women's worsted and cotton-warp
dress goods. The corporation, however, did not prosper, and it was twice
reorganized. In 1867 William Whitman was elected treasurer, but he
found the conditions so unsatisfactory that in 1869 he resigned, but be-
fore the end of the year he was re-elected, and a determined eflfort was
then put forth to place the corporation on a more solid financial basis,
and at the same time extend the property. The capital stock was again
increased, this time to $240,000. ■ In 1870 a reorganization was effected
which made Joseph Nickerson president and William Whitman treasurer
and general manager of the mills, and at the same time the stockholders
paid in the whole amount of the authorized capital. The expansion of
the business under this supervision was phenomenal and without a par-
allel in the history of manufacturing in New England. In 1871 the mill
was remodeled and its productive capacity increased. In 1872 the com-
pany began the manufacture of alpacas, mohairs and brilliantines, which
immediately took rank with those made in Bradford, England, and in
1875 the corporation name of Arlington Mills was adopted. The capital
stock was constantly increased; in 1877 to $500,000; in 1880 to $750,000;
in 1882 to $1,000,000; in 1887 to $1,500,000; in 1890 to $2,000,000, and
in 1896 to $2,500,000. Mill after mill was added, until, in 191 1, the
446 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
buildings comprised more than sixty acres of floor space and the capital
stock was $8,000,000.
The Arlington Mills began the manufacture of dress goods nearly
fifty years ago, and during this half century has always maintained a
high standard of perfection and has manufactured the best worsted dress
fabrics for women's wear made in this country. This branch of the busi-
ness has steadily grown from 1865 to the present time, and it now re-
quires 2,500 looms to take care of the demands of the trade. These goods
are sold to the jobbing trade and the cutting-up trade throughout the
country.
The staples in which the Arlington Mills specialize are brilliantines,
Sicilians, mohairs, imperial serges, storm serges, cheviots, Panamas,
batistes, taffetas, voiles, nun's veilings, cashmeres, shepherd checks, etc.
The spinning capacity of the Arlington Mills is far beyond the re-
quirements of the looms, and many years ago it began the production of
worsted yarns for sale. In this way manufacturers of limited capital
were encouraged to build up new weaving enterprises without the ex-
pense of building and conducting large spinning plants. The output of
the worsted spinning mill in iQio amounted to 275,000 pounds of worsted
yarn per week. Step by step the successful manufacture of worsted yarns
has been developed along with the manufacture of dress goods, an enor-
mous quantity of these yarns being required to keep running the looms
of a large number of mills throughout the country, for the yarns that are
thus sold enter into almost every kind of worsted cloth, and their standard
is the highest of any made in the United States.
In 1881 the Arlington Mills introduced the spinning of cotton yarns
in order to supply specially prepared warps for some classes of its dress
goods. A four-story spinning mill and two-story twisting mill were
erected at that time, but additions have been gradually made to this de-
partment, and the sale of cotton yarns to other manufacturers has be-
come a large and important part of the business. To meet this rapid
growth, two large new mills were added in 1903, in which a splendidly
equipped mercerizing plant was installed and also a dye-house, in order
to provide the trade with colored as well as gray yarns. The best quality
of cotton yarns are turned out in this mill for knitters and weavers of
all kinds of fabrics — gray, gassed, mercerized and dyed yarns — put up
in every form required by the trade. The reputation of the Arlington
Mills as regards this particular feature is, thus far, second to none in
the country. This department in 1910 comprised four large buildings
with a floor space covering more than eight acres wholly devoted to the
manufacture of cotton yarn.
In 1896 the construction of a worsted top mill devoted to carding
and combing wool for spinning added to the output of the Arlington
Mills and enabled spinners to obtain partially prepared raw material with-
OF THE UNITED STATES 447
out the expense of building mills for that purpose. In connection with
this department, a large plant has also been built for removing the grease
from wool by the use of naphtha, which greatly improves the quality of
the product. The Top Mil) at this writing has a capacity for handling
1,250,000 pounds of greasy wool per week.
The Arlington Mills corporation had as successive presidents : Robert
M. Bailey, 1865-1870; Joseph Nickerson, 1870-80; Albert Winslow Nicker-
son, 1880-93; George Augustus Nickerson, 1893-1902. In 1902 William
Whitman, who for thirty-five years had served the corporation as treas-
urer, was made president. Franklin W. Hobbs was at this time elected
to the treasurership, and has, during his nine years of service (1911),
proven himself an efficient successor to Mr. Whitman. Mr. Hobbs was
also executive officer of the mills. In 1902 the capital stock of the corpor-
ation was increased to $3,000,000; in 1905, to $5,000,000; in 1908, tc
$6,000,000, and in 1910, to $8,000,000.
In 191 1 the officers of the corporation were: Directors, , George E.
Bullard, Livingston Gushing, Robert H. Gardiner, Franklin W. Hobbs,
James R. Hooper, George E. Kunhardt, Charles W. Leonard, William
K. Richardson, Richard S. Russell, George M. Whitin and William Whit-
man ; president, William Whitman ; treasurer, Franklin W. Hobbs ; resi-
dent agent, William D. Hartshorne ; transfer agent. The New England
Trust Co. The executive offices of the corporation were located at 78
Chauncy Street, Boston, Mass.
The equipment of the mills in 191 1 included 138 worsted cards, 92
worsted combs, 120,804 worsted spinning spindles, 2,400 worsted dress
goods looms and 62,268 cotton spinning spindles. The number of em-
ployees needed to keep this vast amount of machinery running at its maxi-
mum capacity was 8,900, with a weekly pay-roll of $77,000. Largely
through the growth of the Arlington Mills, Lawrence became the largest
wool manufacturing city in the United States.
The mills are all heated and ventilated with scientific thoroughness
by the most approved methods. The health and comfort of the opera-
tives are most carefully looked after, both because these precautions are
the rightful due of the working people and because enhghtened self-interest
to-day has shown that they are essential to the highest efficiency. The
Arlington Mills in 1877 adopted the policy of weekly payment of wages,
and was the first corporation of any importance in Massachusetts to adopt
the progressive and helpful policy which eight years later was made com-
pulsory by law in all manufacturing establishments in Massachusetts. In
this and every other line the Arlington Mills has at all times led in every
effort to improve the conditions of labor in the textile mills of New
England.
448 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
SANFORD MILLS.
This enterprise, which has transformed the farming village of Sanford,
^le., into an important commercial and industrial centre, had its incep-
tion in 1867, when Thomas Goodall came to Sanford from Troy, N. Y. —
where he had been engaged in the manufacture of horse and army
blankets — and purchased William Miller's flannel mill, James O. Clark's
grist and sawmills and the entire water power of the Mousam River con-
trolled by these manufacturers at that point.
Mr. Goodall immediately began the enlargement of the plant, and
early in 1868 had two sets of cards and ten looms in operation, giving em-
ployment to fifty operatives in the production of kersey blankets and
carriage robes, the first of their kind manufactured in the United States.
The ever-increasing demand for these commodities necessitated larger
facilities for their production, and the mills have now (1911) grown to a
capitalization of $1,250,000 and the employment of two thousand oper-
atives. L. C. Chase & Co., of Boston, Mass., are the selling agents.
In 1873 Lucius C. Chase, of Boston; Louis B., George B. and Ernest
M. Goodall, sons of Thomas Goodall, and Amos Garnsey, Jr., formed a
co-partnership, and in 1874, under the style of Goodall & Garnsey, began
the manufacture of plain and fancy blankets in newly erected factories
known as the Mousam River Mills. Prior to 1882 all mohair plushes used
in America were imported from Europe, principally from France. In that
year George B. Goodall, of Sanford, Me., commenced experimenting on
a wooden hand-loom of his own make, and it was he who wove the first
piece of mohair plush made in America. Having proved to his satisfaction
by further experimentation that mohair plush could be woven on a power
loom, with his brothers, Louis B. and Ernest M., he organized a company
for the purpose of entering upon its manufacture. This firm, known as
Goodall Brothers, together with the Mousam River Mills, referred to
above, was afterwards consolidated into the Sanford Mills. With the
assistance of a talented inventor, the) perfect-working, wire-motion, power
plush loom, thereafter used in the mill, was produced and put into operation.
The company started with one loom, and from this small beginning
steadily grew until they reached the eminence of standing at the head of
the mohair plush manufactories of the world. In 191 1 the Board of
Directors of the corporation consisted of E. M. Goodall, G. B. Goodall,
John Hopewell and Frank Hopewell. The officers comprised E. M.
Goodall, president ; E. E. Hussey, vice-president ; Frank Hopewell, treas-
urer; Frank B. Hopewell, assistant treasurer; W. O. Emery, clerk; L. C.
Chase & Co., of Boston, selling agents.
The following brief description of the Sanford Mills will give our
OF THE UNITED STATES 440
readers some idea of the magnitude of the plant operated by the Sanford
Mills Company :
Mill No. I is the actual nucleus of all the Goodall enterprises; it is
devoted to the carding, spinning and weaving of carriage robes and
velours; is three stories high, 40 feet wide and 160 feet long, with a two-
story ell 40 by 75 feet.
Mill No. 2 is a three-story structure with basement, 140 feet square.
The carriage robe and velour finishing departments occupy the first and
second floors of Mill No. 2, while the third floor is devoted to the drying
and storing of imprinted fabrics.
In the winter of 1888-89, ^ roomy building was put up on the west-
erly side of the Mousam River, connected with mills 2 and 3 by grade
and overhead bridges^ and here the printing, chemical, block-making, color-
making, steaming, washing, pile-raising and drying departments are con-
ducted.
Mill No. 3 is a three-story building, 50 x 120 feet; the ground floor
is devoted to the storage of raw material, the second floor to mixing the
blends for making carriage robes, and the third contains the plush-stretch-
ing machinery and appliances for the drying of printed and imjirinted fab-
rics.
Parallel with Mill No. 3, and connected with Mill No. 2 by an over-
head bridge, is an immense building, the first floor of which is devoted to
the storage of raw material, and the second and third floors to the storage
of finished carriage robes and blankets ; the packing and shipping depart-
ments are also under this roof.
Mill No. 4 occupies a position directly across the Mousam in an
easterly direction from Mill No. 2. It is 60 x 600 feet, and on the ground
floor are the fulling and pile or warp raising machines, also the mohair
warping and combing departments ; the mohair spinning departments oc-
cupy the second and third floors.
Mill No. 5, connected with Mill No. 4 by a covered bridge, is a weav-
ing shed, 375 X 125 feet, with monitor roofs of glass, especially constructed
with a view to perfect lighting. It contains an immense number of plush
looms and affords space also for the drying, cropping, embossing, steam-
ing and packing and shipping departments in connection with the produc-
tion of car plushes.
Mills Nos. 6 and 7, formerly known as the Mousam River Mills, are
50x170 feet and 40x120 feet respectively. In the first are the card-
ing, spinning, weaving, dyeing and finishing departments ; in the second,
the raw material undergoes the initial process towards conversion into
blankets.
In a building situated south of Mill No. 5 a tinsmith manufactures
the long wire knives used for loop-cutting in the plush looms and repairs
the long tin cylinders used in the mohair spinning frames.. The plant
450 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
operates its own saw mills for the manufacture of shipping cases and for
the preparation of lumber for buildings and all other purposes, and a large
number of machinists and wood-workers are constantly employed in well-
equipped shops, while the blacksmith's hammers are heard ringing from
the anvils of their forges.
The factory yard includes many acres, and scattered about it are
numerous buildings for the housing of raw material valued at hundreds
of thousands of dollars.
Every factory is provided with the sprinkler system for protection
from fire, the same being connected with huge reservoirs.. The Sanford
i\lills have also a thoroughly equipped fire department, including an Amos-
keag steamer, hose trucks and combination hook and ladder apparatus,
handled by expert firemen. An automatic force pump, operated by steam,
with a capacity of 1,200 gallons of water per minute, is set up in a brick
building, situated at a very considerable distance from any other building.
The yielding of a single fusible plug, in any part of the sprinkler system,
suffices to set this pump in motion. The motive power is supplied by water,
sttam and electricity, the total amount of 1,500 horse-power being used to
operate the plant.
SHAW STOCKING COMPANY
The Shaw Stocking Company, Lowell, Middlesex County, Mass., is
located on the Merrimack River, and railroad facilities are afforded by
the Boston and Maine Railway system. The enterprise was promoted by
Benjamin F. Shaw, E. A. Thissell, Jacob II. Sawyer and others, the ob-
ject of the promoters being to further increase the facilities for manu-
facturing in Lowell. The promoters obtained a charter of incorporation
from the legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Oct. 16,
1877, as the Shaw Stocking Company, with a capital stock of $30,000.
The first mill was two small rented rooms in which were operated a few
Shaw knitting machines. As the business increased, ^lill No. i was built,
238 feet long and 40 feet wide, three stories in height. The business,
which, consisted of the weaving of hosiery, prospered, and soon it became
necessary to enlarge the plant. j\Iill No. 2 was then built, 251 feet long
and 75 feet wide, with two stories over a high basement ; and, subse-
quently. Mill No. 3, 235 feet long, 74 feet wide, two stories high. These
were followed by !\Iill No. 4. 245 feet long, 118 feet wide, with two stories and
a storage basement, which was devoted exclusively to carding and spinning
cotton yarns. In the latter were installed 12,432 modern spindles, mak-
ing the finest quality of combed yarns for use in the company's produc-
tion of "Shawnit" hosiery. The capital stock was increased from time
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OF THE UNITED STATES 4SI
to time until, in 191 1, it was placed at $540,000. The 700 Shaw looms
and 12,432 spindles produced Shawknit men's half hose and children's
long stockings, woven from cotton, merino, wool, worsted, lisle and linen
yarns, the goods being of various weights from heavy to gauze.
In 191 1, Mill No. I was used by the box-making and printing depart-
ment, and by a dyeing and oxydizing department. To Mill No. i was at-
tached the engine and dynamo-rooms and the boiler-house. Mill No. 2 was
devoted to finishing, to storage, packing and shipping, and to machine and
carpenter shops. The four large mill buildings were in 191 1 furnished with
heat and power from Corliss, Rollins and Mcintosh and Seymour steam
engines, and the corporation owned its own dynamo and electric lighting
plant, as well as its own water plant. The establishment gave employmetit
to 600 men and women as operatives and helpers in the various processes
of manipulating the raw cotton as it reached the mills in bales into fin-
ished stockings boxed and cased ready to be sent to the jobber, the re-
tailer or the wearer. On June i, 1910, the officers were: Frank J. Dutcher,
William E. Hall, E. A. Thissell, Frank E. Dunbar, George S. Motley,
Amasa Pratt, Josiah Butler and Edward W. Thomas, directors, with Frank
J. Dutcher as president and William E. Hall as treasurer and general man-
ager.
INDEX
Sketches and their location are indicated by the heavier type and figures
PAGE
Abaca or manila hemp 192, 206
Acid alizarine 174
Actien-Gesellschaft fur Anilin
Fabrikation 169
Adais, James 159
Aden 113
Agave Americanus 209
Agave cantula 194
Agave rigida sisilana. . . . 194, 207, 208
Age of mordant dyestufTs, The.. 177
Ahasueras 54
Albany Aniline Color Works.... 182
Aldige, Paul 2^2
Alexander, C. P 253
Alexander. Joseph 66
Alf ord, Orlando H 349
Algole colors 174
Alizarine 178
Allen, Crawford 166
Allen, Philip 166
Allen Printing Co 166
Allen. Zachariah 246
Allendale ;\Iill 246
Almy & Brown 67, 216
Almy, William 67
Aloe fibre 210
Alpino 54
Amalgro 114
Amatt, Anthony 80
American Card Clothing Co.... 219
American Dyewood Co 170
American or Kentucky hemp.... 206
American knitting machine 149
American Printing Co 166
American "Process" 167
American Mutual Fire Ins. Co... 247
American type turbine 225
American Warp Drawing-in Co. . 2ig
Amory, Arthur 375
Amory, James Sullivan 374
Amoskeag Machine Shop 218
Ancients, Ropemaking by 200
Anderson Cotton Mills 234, 235
Andreykovicz & Dunk 170
Andromache 116
Annals of Philadelphia 1C6
Anthony, Daniel 66, 93
Anthony, Richard 216
Appleton Company 225
Aristotle it6
Arkwright inventions. The 216
Arkwright Mutual Fire Insurance
Company 247
PAGE
Arkwright, Sir Richard,
58. 59, 60, 61, 63, 65, 67, 99
Arlington Mills 445
Arnold, Asa 220
Arnold, Harvey 168
Arnold, Oliver 168
Arnold Print Works 168
Asbestos 117
Ashworth 64
Ash, Robert 147
Assyrians 118
Asurbanipal 118
Atwood. Morrison Co 220
Auger & Simon Dyeing Co 171
Augustus C.-esar 158
Automatic spinner 204
Ayer, Frederick 325
Ayer, James Cook 327
B
rSadische Anilin-und Soda Fab-
rik 169, 180
Baeger, Dr. A 180
Bahamas 195
Baines, Sir Edward. .. .57, 58, 61, 131
Baldwin, Matthias 165
Ballard 95
Bamford, Charles, Sr 150
Bancroft, Eben Draper 293
Bancroft, Edwin 163
Bancroft, Joseph 166
Bancroft, Joseph B 292
Barber & Colman Co 219
Barberini Gallery 117
Barings, The 39, 40, 41
Barr, Alexander 66
Barr, Robert 66, 216
Battle of Columbus 167
Bault, William 168
Baumgardner, Woodward & Co.. 205
Bayeux tapestry 187
Bayley, Timothy 150
Beaumont, Gaston 70
Bedwell, Thomas 162
Bell of Glasgow 64
Bell's Printing Machine 160
Bengal hemp 194
Bennett, Theodore W 346
Bent, William H 402
Bentley, Mr 16s
Berkley Mills 87
Berlin Aniline Works 170
Bertholet 160
453
454
INDEX
PAGE
Beverly Cotton Mill, 66, 162, 216, 407
Biddle, Nicholas 38, 39, 40, 41
"Big- Ben" 79
Bigelow, Erastus B 220, 320
Bigelow, Horatio N 323
Bindschedler & Burch 169
Binks, G. W 213
Black, Dr 62
Blackstone Mutual Fire Ins. Co.. 247
Blanket, Thomas 122
Bleaching, Dyeing and Print-
ing 158, 175
Bleacheries, List of 166
Block printed linens 125
Blockade running 42, 43
Boettiger 179
Bombay hemp 206
Boott, Kirk 280
Boott Mills 225, 434
Borden, M. C. D 169
Borden, Spencer 169
Borell, M 162
Bosson & Lane i6g
Boston Cordage Co 203
Boston D\'ewod Co 170
Boston Mfg. Co 137. 164. 163
Boulton & Watt 63
Bourne, Ed 165
Bowen Bleaching Co 163
Eoj'den, L^riah A 226
Boynton, Eleazar 345
Bradford, \\'ilHam 22
Brayton, David A 331
Brazil Wood 159
Bridesburg Company 221
Brighton. Mr 62
British Cotton Growing Associa-
tion II
Broad looms, Introduction of. . . . 126
Brooks, Samuel 99
Bronx Company 165
Brown. James, Co 220
Brown, Joseph 218
Brown. Closes 66, 216
Browning & Bros 166
Browns, The 39. 41
Brunei, Sir. M. 1 148
"Bucking" 161
Buffalo Aniline Works 170
Burden. Kinsej' 2
Burke, William A 329
Butterworth. H. W., & Sons.... 219
Caesar the Dictator 55
Calico printing in Germantown . . 164
Cannabis sativa 191
Cans, Solomon de 62
Cards, hand, stock 91
Card clothing 93
Card teeth 94
Carding, Improvements in 92, 93
Carding machines, first in V. S.. 93
FAQE
Carter, Isaiah 22
Cartwright, Edmund,
63, 65, 78, 82, 85, 130, 137, 139, 204
Case No. 1458 155
Cassella, Leopold 169
Castner. Hamilton Y 171
Charlemagne 158
Charles 1 62
Chatham. Lord 161
Cheape, William 130
Chemnitz 152
Chevremont, M 210
Chinese draw loom 130
Chittenden 94
Chlorine bleaching 160, 161
Chlorine compounds, L^se of.... 161
Chlorine, Discovery of 160
Chromatic colors 174
Churchill, W^inston 12
Churka, The 53
Ciba colors 174
Clark, Colonel 252
Clark. W. A. Graham 72
Coal tar colors. Data of 172, 173
Coal tar industry 181, 183
Coates 95
Cocheco Mfg. Co 165
Cochrane, Alexander 167
Coir 213
Cole, Thomas 125
Collier, James 80, 81, 82
Columbia ^lills 234
Columbia ?4lills Co 233
Columbia Water Power Co 233
Columbus. Cliristopher I. 55
Combing and Carding 77-96
Committee of Safety 149
Comparison of rope 210
"Compound lard" 255
Conklin 95
Conkling, Roscoe 43
Connell, Prof. J. H 255
Coolidge, T. Jefferson 333
Cooper-Corliss engine 235
"Cordage trees" 212
"Cordelier," The 204
Cortez 56
"Cottolene" 257
Cotton as cordage material 213
Cotton Ginning 20-27
Cotton, Production of 1-16
Cotton, The Manufacture of... 53-76
Cotton Speculation in America. .35-52
Cotton Seed and its Products. 250-257
Cotton Seed Crushers' Associa-
tion 25s
Cotton seed oil, Early knowledge
of 250
Co-xe, Tench 216
Coxfender 149
Crapo, Wm. W 335
Crighton, John 64
Crocker & Richmond 138
Crompton, George 138. 218. 304
Crompton-Knowles Loom Co... 138
INDEX
455
PAGB
Crompton Loom Works 218
Crompton mule 61, 65
Crompton, William 138. 218, 305
Crompton, Samuel 61, 65, 99
Crude products per ton of cotton
seed 256
Curtis, Albert 312
Cylinder printing 160
Dacca muslins 54
Dale, David 162
Dalsace, G 170
Dana, Charles A 43
Dana Warp Mills 433
Dana, Woodbury K 379
Danforth frames 100
Dan vers Bleachery & Dye Wotks. 167
Dartmouth Mfg. Corporation.... 441
Daru 70
Davis & Furber Co 219
Davol, W. C 218
Dawson, William 146
Dawson's eccentric wheels 147
Dean, Francis W 388
Defoe. Daniel 54
De Girard, Phillippe 187
Delarothiere, M 153
Denistouns, The 41
Derby rib machine 145
Dexter, Andrew 66
Dickson Lubricating Saddle Co.. 219
Dido 116
Dingley Bill 183
Discovery of America 159
Dobson & Barlow 87, 88
Dodge, George H 99
Donisthorpe 82, 83, 84, 85
Donisthorpe & Rawson 80
Donnell, J. T., & Co 205
Double nip comber 88
Dow Chemical Co 167
Draper Company 218, 221, 426
Draper, Ebenezer Daggett 283
Draper, Eben Sumner 287
Draper, George 281
Draper, George A 289
Draper, George 0 289
Draper, George, & Sons 218
Draper, Ira 218, 138
Draper, William F 284
Drawboy machine 130
Draw loom 126, 130
Drop box, The 129
Dubreuil 2
Duncan, Albert Greene 371
Dundee, Jute at 196
Dunstan, Prof. W., F. R. S. 11
"Dutch Engine Loom" intro-
duced 127, 130
Dutcher, Frank J 292
Dutcher, Warren W 291
Dutcher Temple Co 218
PAQE
Dwight Mfg. Co 443
Dyeing in America, First men-
tion of 162
Dyeing in Europe 159, 176, 180
DyestufF and Dyeing Indus-
tries 176-180
Dyer, Mr 61
E
Eagle Mills 167
Earle, Phinney 94
Easton & Burnham Machine Co. 219
Eddystone Mfg. Co 167
Edward VI 142
Egyptian Cotton 17-19
Electric motors 232
Electric Power as Applied to Tex-
tile Machinery 232-238
Elm City Dye Works 169
Else & Hammond 146
Elizabeth 142, 143
Elizabethport Steam Cordage Co. 205
Emmons Loom Harness Co 219
Entwistle ,T. C, Co 219
Era of natural dyestuffs 176
Era of synthetic dyestufifs 178
Esparto cordage 213
Evans, Oliver 252
Evolution of Transmission of
Water Power 223-231
F
Fabyan, George F 347
Factory Fire Insurance, History
of 245-249
Factory mutual fire insurance
companies 248
Fairbanks, Henry Parker 324
Fales & Jenks 100
Fall River Iron Works 166
Farnsworth, Ezra 357
Fastened platted work 147
Fewkes, Benjamin 150
First fulling mill in America 127
First linen warp spun by machin-
ery 187
First oil mill in Texas 255
First stockings of cotton yarn... 144
Firth, Thomas 169
Fitler, Edwin H., & Co 205
Flax in fourteenth century 186
Flax, Manufacture of 184-igo
Fleecy vests, first 147
Flemish weavers 187
"Float wheels" 223
Florence, Dyeing in 159
Fluorescein colors 178-179
Flyer frame. The 99
Fly shuttle. The 129
Forbes, Mr 26
Forster, Rev. C 113
Forsyth & Fisher 169
456
INDEX
FAOB
Fort Niagara 223
Firth, William, & Co 219
Foster, John H i6g
Foster Machine Co 219
Fourneyron turbines 224
Francis, James B., turbines. . .225, 226
Franklin Foundry Co 218
Furbush, M. A 218
Furbush Machine Co 219
Fullem, John 66
G
Gachel, Charles 22
Garner & Co 45
Gartside 63
General Assembly of Connecticut. 163
General Electric Co 233, 236
Gennes, M. de 63
Gilbert Loom Co 218
Gilmour, William 138, 217
Gilpin, George 81
Gilroy, Clinton 139
Giovanni, Ventura R 159
Gist, W. C 149
Glabasch & Mumford 88
Globe Dye Works Co 168
Goetchins. John M 169
Goodall, Thomas 341
Gorden, Barrow & Co 161
Gottlieb Hecker and Soehne.... 152
Gould, Messrs. Henry A. & Co.. 170
Goulding, John 95
Goulding machine for carding.. 95, 96
Greene, Edwin F 340
Greene. Mrs. Nathaniel 21
Greene, Stephen 339
Greenwood, Richard 168
Gresham, Sir Thomas 142
Griess, diazo reaction 178
Grimshaw, Messrs 63
Gwathmey, Archibald B 43
H
Hackling, or heckling, of fJax.... 186
Hadley Mill, Mass 87
Hague, The 147
Hakluyt 56
Hale, Mr 95
Hamilton, James 245
Hamilton, General 41
Hamilton Manufacturing Co 422
Hamilton Woolen 85
Hand-in-Hand Fire Insurance Co. 245
Hangings of the Tabernacle 117
Harding, Edgar 351
Hargreaves, James 58, 59, 65, 66
Harvey, Arnold & Co 168
Harwood, George S. & Sons 219
Hawksley, John 79
Hayne. Frank 48, 49, 51
Hazard, Isaac 137
Hazard, Rowland 137
Heathcote, inventor 150
PAGE
Heilmann, Josue 64, 83-90
Helindone colors 174
Hemp, Jute and Kindred Fibres,
191-199
Henry IV, VI 142
Henry, Thomas 161
Hentz, Henry 44
Herlein & Kupferberg 170
Herodotus 53. "7
Hetherington, John 86, 87, 88
Heumann's process 180
Hewson, John 162
Hide ropes 213
Highs, Thomas 59
Hildreth, Charles L 342
Hill, Thomas J 218
Hill, William H 400
Hillje, Mr .• 253
Hingham Cordage Co 205
Hine & Mundella 148, 149
Hisn Ghorab 113
History of Spinning 97-103
History of Dyestuff and Dyeing
Industries 176-180
Hobbs, Franklin W 364
Hoffmann's violet 178
Holden, Isaac 84, 85
Holden, Isaac, & Sons 86
Holden, Richard 160
Holland 147
Holmes, Hodgen ...21, 22, 23, 24, 217
Home, Dr 160
Homer 119
Hopedale Community 218
Hopedale Machine Co 218
Hopewell, John 358
Horrocks, H 64
Horrocks Mill 138
Hottinguer & Co 39, 4i
Houldsworth, Henry 61
Howard & Bullough 90, 219
Howd, Samuel B 225
Howland Mill. Mass 87
Huller Gin, The 24
Humboldt 55
Humphreys, May 39
Humphreys & Biddle 39, 41
Hudson Calico Printing Works.. 165
Hunsdon, Lord 143
Hunt, Samuel, Sr 150
Hunter, Thomas 165
Hutchins, Charles Henry 309
I
Indigo trade. The 177
Ipswich Lace Company 150
Italian garden hemp 205
J
"Jack of Newbury" 126
Jackson, Patrick Tracy.. 137, 218, 276
Jackson, Patrick Tracy, 2d 278
Jackson, Patrick Tracy, 4th 278
INDEX
457
Jackson, Thomas & Sons 205
E. Hunt, Messrs 174
Jacquard, Joseph Marie 132
Jacquard loom 83, 132
James, Thomas 59
Japan, Art of weaving in 140, 141
Jenks, Stephen, Screw Co 218
Jennings, William H 397
Johnson, Thomas 64, 137
John Bonte's Sons ' 205
J. Rineke's Sons 205
Jones, Capt. W 245
Jonval turbine 225
Joy, John D. W 349
K
Kalbfleisch, Ed. L 169
Kalle & Co., A. G 170
Kay, John 57. 65, 129, 130, 131
Kay, Robert 57, 129
"Kay's reeds" 129
Kendrew, John 187
Kilburn, Edward 87
Kilburn Mills 89
Kincaid, James E 21
King, Theophilus 394
Kitson Machine Co 218
Kitson, Richard 219, 328
Kittredge, Henry G 403
.Klauder Bros 171
Klauder-Weldon Dyeing Machine
Co. 171
Knitting, Origin and Progress of
Art of 142-153
Knitting statistics 151, 152
Knowles, Francis B 308
Knowles, Lucius J 138, 307
Knowles Loom Works 218
Knotted hosiery 146
Koechlin, Messrs 163
Kullroff 167
Labouisse, Peter 45, 46
Lace, Ancient 117
Lace machines 150
Lamb 95
Lasell, Josiah 303
Latham, John C 43
Lawrence, Amos 271
Lawrence, Amos A 269
Lawrence, Abbott 272
Lawrence, Amory A 274
Lawrence Dyeworks Co 170
Lawrence, John S 275
Lawrence Mfg. Co 415
Lawrence, Samuel 138
Lebrun, Consul 146
Lee, Charles 22
Lee, James 143
Lee, William 143, 145, 148
Lees, John 58, 93
Lee's Frame 14S, 148
PAGE
Leibig's Analysis of Flax 185
Leigh, Evan lOO, 219
Leisel & Holbach 170
Leisel & Georgi 170
Lennig, Charles 167
Lentulus Spinther 55
Leonard 66
Lightfoot 178
Lindley, Joshua 66
List of natural dyestuffs 177
Lister, S. Cunliffe 82, 83, 84, 85
Litchfield Shuttle Co 219
Littlefield, Alfred H., Sr 365
Livermore, Jesse 51
Li.x ivium 159
Lockwood, Thomas St. John... 363
Lockett, Joseph 164
Logwood 159
London 56, 62
I^ondon framework knitters 144
London Hosiery Manufacture.... 143
Londonderry settled by weavers. 129
Lorimer, W. H., Sons Co 170
Lovering, Charles L 376
Lovering, Henry M 378
Lovering, Willard 375
Lovering, William C 377
Lowe, S. C 89, 219
Lowe, Arthur H 396
Lowe, Horace Arthur 155, 156
Lowell Augustus 265
"Lowell Bleachery" 166
Lowell, Francis Cabot... 137, 217, 267
Lowell, John Amory 268
Lowell loom 137
Lowell Machine Shop 218, 416
Ludlow Mfg. Associates 431
Lyman, Arthur T 318
Lyman Cotton Mfg. Co 138
Lyman, Judge 138
Lyman Mills 138
Lyon, Alvin S 406
M
Macarthy gin 25, 26
Madder cultivation 163
Madison, James 164
Main, Charles T 386
Mama Oella 114
Mammoth Mill, The 65
Manchester Cotton Supply Asso. . 42
Manchester Alills 85
Mansfield Silk Co 139
Manomet Mills 89
Manufacture of Cotton The . . . 53-76
Manufacturing Committee of
Pennsylvania 162
Macgregor 160
Marble, Edwin T 310
Mariegola dell Arte dei Tintori.. 159
Marland, Abraham 314
Marquis of Worcester 62
Marsland, Peter 64
Mason, David H 165
4S8
INDEX
PAGE
Mason Macliine Shops 88, 218
Mason, William 218, 389
"Mather Patent Kier" 170
Mather & Piatt, Messrs 170
Mauveine, or Perkins violet 168
Mathieson Alkali Works 167
Mathieson, Wm. J 169
Matthews. Edward 43
McArthur, Robert 405
McFaddens, The 50, 51
McFarland 95
McNary Knitting Machine Co... 149
Meister, Lucius and Brunnig 169
Mercerization of Cotton 154, 155
Mercer, John 154, 155, 156
Merrick Mills. Mass 87
Merrimack Mfg. Co 412
Metallic Drawing Roll Co 219
Midland Stocking Makers 147
Mill Engineering 239, 244
Miller, Robert 64
Miller, W. J 170
Mills, Isaac 77
Minerva 113
"Modern Cotton Spinning" 100
Montague, Mrs 142
Monteith. Mr 64
Moodj', Paul 217
Moors 142
Morgan, James L i6g
Morgan, James L., Jr 169
Morgan, T 169
Morris & Betts 145
Moulton, Oliver H 399
Mowbray, F. W 149
Mowry, William 217
Munger, R. S 25
Mumford Comber 88, 89
Mutual Protection Society 147
N
Naamah 114
Napoleon 146, 187
Nasmith Comber, The 89
Nasmith, John 89
National Ring Traveller Co 219
Naumkeag Co 167
New Bedford Cordage Co 205
Newburgh Bleacher 169
Newburyport Hose Co 151
Newcomen, Thomas 62
New England Lace Co 150
New England Worsted Co 85
New York and Boston Dyewood
Company 170
Niagara Electro-Chemical Co... 171
Nichols, John Howard 337
Niles, Nathaniel 93
Noble, James 80, 81, 85
Noble Machine 84
Nolte, Vincent.. . .35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41
Northrop, James H 139
Northrop loom 65, 139
PAGE
Northrop spooler guide 139
Northrop Loom Co 218
Nud, Samuel 59
Nottingham, Riots at 147
Oakdale Chemical Co 170
Obiardo Barbosa 56
Oerlikon motor 236
Orr, Mr 66, 216
Oviedo 55
Pacific Mills 165, 168, 436
Pacific Woolen Mills 85
Papillon 162
Parker, Walter E 398
Parker, Isaac 352
Parr, Curtis & Co 87
Parsons, Theophilus 394
Passaic Print Works 169
Passman, John 80
Patent Calendering and Bleach-
ing Co 164
Patten, James A 51
Paul, Lewis 58, 92
Pearson Cordage Co 203, 205
Pearson, Charles H 203
Pearson, Samuel 203
Peatfield, James 150
Peatfield, Sanford 150
Peck, Leander R 370
Peek, Lewis 66
Peel. Mr 92
Pembroke, Earl of 142
Perkin, Sir Wm. H . . 168, 172, 178, 181
Perkins, Jacob 164
Perrotine, The 160
Pettee Machine Works 218
Pettee, Otis 218, 387
Phenix Iron Works Corporation. 219
Philadelphia Textile Mach. Co... 219
Phoenicians 118
Pickering, Timothy 22
Pickhardt, Wm 169
Pinel-Lecoeur comber 86
Pinna 116
Pitcher & Guy 218
Pizarro 55
Plymouth Cordage Co 203-205
Pond Lily Co 169
Ponemah Mills 87
Poor, Edward E 169
Poron, Freres 153
Prevost 155. 156
Price, Theodore H..46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51
Providence Bleaching, Dyeing and
Calendering Co 164
Providence Dyehouse Co 164
Providence Machine Co 87
Providence Machine Shops 218
raDEx
459
R
Rabbeth spindle 65, 97
Radcliffe & Ross 64
Radcliffe, William 136
Rameses II 118
Ramsaye, David 62
Ranger. Sol 45
Randolph, Edmund 22
Redmond & Lever 87
Retting of flax 186
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes 152
Reynolds & Innis, Messrs 165
Richards, Atkinson & Haserick.. 219
Rig Veda S3
Riley, William 142
Roberts, Lewis 56, 61
Roberts, Richard 65
Roberts mule 218
Robertson, Forbes 26
Rogers, Rev. Ezekiel 127
Rogers, Jacob 327
Rogerson, Robert 316
Roller gin. The 25
Romans, The 120
Rope and Ropemaking 200-215
Rotary temple 138
Rotary Warp Machine 150
Rouen, Knitting in 143
Roy le, J. Forbes 53
Rumpf & Lutz i6g
Runge of Galveston 45
Runge, discoverer of atirin 172
Saco & Pettee Machine Shops... 21S
Saco Water Power Co 218
Sadlers & Roe 148
Sampson, Maule & Nicholson.... 178
Sanford Mills 448
Saracenic influence 119
Sargeant automatic dryer 168
Sargeant, Charles G 16S
Sargeant, F. G 168
Sargeant '95
Savery, Captain Thomas 62
Saw gin 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27
Saxons, The 120
Saxony 153
Sayles, Frederic Clark 368
Scheele 160
Schenck, Michael 217
Schenck, R. B 185
Schenck's method of retting flax.. 186
Schliemann, Dr 114
Schcellkopf, Jacob F 170
Schcellkopf, Jacob F., Jr 170
Schcellkopf, C. P. Hugo 170
Schofield, Arthur 93
Scott & Stevenson 63
Scotch Board of Manufacturers.. 159
"Scotch Loom" I3§
Seabury, Dwight 392
Seniiramis 113
PAGE
Sewell, Day & Co 205
S. Gray Company 167
Sharp, Roberts & Co 61
Shaw, Benjamin F 381
Shaw Stocking Co 450
Sheldon, Frank Perry 383
Shimadju, Prince 74
Shrine of Athene 118
Shudweiler, Prof 186
Sicilian loom. The 119
Silk stockings 142
Silky Lustre of Mercerization, 156, 157
Simpson, William, Sr 167
Sjostrom, Ludwig 170
Slade, George P 169
Slade. T. Morgan 169
Slater Mills, The 440
Slater, Samuel 216, 258
Smalley. John 59
Smith, Eleazar 95
Smith & Furbush Mach. Co 219
Snow, Edmond 94
Society of Chemical Industry.... 169
Somers, Thomas 66
Soplis, William 77
Spanish weavers 119. 142
Spinning, History of 97-103
Spinning mule 99
Spratt, Dr 159
Statistics of cord and twine in-
dustry 214, 215
Stafford Loom Works 218
Stamford Manufacturing Co 163
Steam engine
St. Denis Dyestuflf & Chemical
Company 170
St. Denis Compan\- 170
Stell, John 130
Stocking Frame, The 143
Stocking Machine, First in New-
England 150
Stockton, Howard 384
Stoddard, Haserick & Richards.. 87
Strabo S3-ii7
Strada de Roccellarii 159
Strutt, Jedediah 59. 61, 67, 145
Strutt, William 61
Sully, Daniel J 49, 50, 51
Summerdale Print Works 166
Summersby, Walter H 372
Sweden, Loom in 141
Sykes, Walter F 170
T
Taf t, Gustavus E 302
Tarapaca 115
Tariff Act of 1883 182
Tattnal, Governor 2
Tavernier 54
Tennant. Charles 161
Textile Machinery 216-222
The Society for the Promotion of
Arts. Agriculture and Economy 137
Thomas . •. 155. 156
460
INDEX
PAGE
Thompson, Colonel 51
Thompson, Thomas 149
Thorpe, John 99
Thorpe, Siddall & Co 164
Thread Carrier, The 148
Tolhurst Machine Works 167
Tolhiirst self-balancing extractor. 168
Tompkins, D. A., Co.... 219
Townsend 148, 149
Treaty of Ghent 36
Tricoteur, The 148
Tro}-es 153
Tully, Christopher 66
Tnmbler needle, The 148, 149
Turkey red dye 162
Tyrian purple 158
U
Uhlinger, W. P 167
United Company 66
United States Bobbin Co 219
United States Finishing Co 171
Universal Winding Co 219
Upton, Elijah 167
Uxbridge Cotton Mills 439
V
Vasca da Gama 55
Virgil 116
Virgins of the Sun 56
Vaucanson 63
Vatican Library 117
W
Walker, T. W 167
Wallace, Cranmore N 343
Walmsley, Herbert Edward 393
Walpole Dye & Chemical Works. 169
Walters, John 162
Waltham Bleaching & Dye
Works 165
Warner, George 150
Warp to stocking frame. Appli-
cation of 146
Washington, George 22, 94, 162
Watkins, Joseph 22
PAGE
Watt, James 62, 63
Watts, D. G 45
Weaving, The History of 113-141
Weaver, Filler & Co 205
Webbe's knitting machine 147
Weidmann, Jacob 169
Weldon, Leonard 171
Wellington, William H 344
^VetheriH, Samuel 165
\\'hite, George S 163
Whitin (or Whiting), Charles E. 300
Whitin, Charles P 298
Whitin, James F 299
Whitin, John Crane 100, 296
Whitin, Henry Thomas 301
Whitin, Paul 218, 294
Whitin, Paul, Jr 295
Whitin, William H 301
Whitin Family, Identity of with
Cotton Manufacturing 426
Whitin high-speed comber 90
Whitin jNIachine Company 89, 90
Whitin Machine Works... 88, 100, 424
\\"hitinsville Spinning Ring Co... 219
Whitman, William 360
Whitnej-, Eli. 3, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 217
\\'hitney & Hoppin 164
Whittemore, Amos 94, 95
"Wild" knitting machines 149
Wilder, Marshall P 354
Wilkinson, David 218
Wilkinson, Jeremiah 93
Wilson Bill 183
Wilson, J. G 149
Wilson, R. T 43
Woad 159
Woodman 95
Wool-combing machine of Cart-
wright 78
Woolett 145
Woonsocket Machine and Press
Company 219
Wyatt John 58. 92
Yarn and Thread Winding. . . .104-112
mmi
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