Connecticut Water Trails Association
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Connecticut Water Trails Association |
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Connecticut Water Trails Program History Of Connecticut's Water Trails History of Mills In Connecticut
Windham Mills
1706 Colonists constructed a
Saw Mill and
Grist Mill at Willimantic Falls in Windham, where the
Willimantic River dropped 90
feet in just over a mile
1822 - Rhode Island businessman Perez “Perry” Richmond built a cotton mill just below the falls, where Recreation Park is now. It was “a small structure of wood some 35 x 65 feet, one and a half stories in height.” The factory neighborhood of Richmond Town (later known as Sodom and Wellesville) formed around the mill. The mill’s success stemmed from both the waterfall and its proximity to Providence, Rhode Island
1822 - Charles “Deacon” Lee opened a cotton mill a half-mile upriver at what is now Bridge Street. “With commendable energy and perseverance he built [a] dam flume and wheel pit and erected a three-story and attic stone mill, with 36 looms.” The factory neighborhood of Leesburg (later known as Smithville) formed around the mill
1857 - The Smithville Company again expanded its buildings. It was now the largest cotton mill in Connecticut.
1845 - Forty-one-year-old Lawson Ives – who manufactured
woolen goods, sewing machines, and steel – and forty-year-old Austin
Dunham who sold cotton goods – formed
the Welles Manufacturing Company with William Jillson and John Capen and
built a new cotton mill on the site of the Richmond mill. They also
constructed some company housing.
Eighteen-year-old Origen Hall of Mansfield went to work for the Windham Manufacturing Company. He would remain until 1839. He would later (1840s and 1850s) own a mill of his own in Willington – the Willington Thread Company – which became the first American mill to finish thread with glaze, a process that Hall learned from his German employee, the engineer John Heck.
1854 Lawson Ives and Austin Dunham, along with Elisha Johnson – Origen Hall’s partner in Willington – formed the Willimantic Linen Company and began manufacturing linen thread in Asa and Seth Jillson’s old stone mill, with a capital of $75,000. When linen proved unprofitable, they switched to manufacturing cotton thread, using the Heck technique to finish it.
1857 - The Willimantic Linen Company (now manufacturing
cotton thread rather than linen) constructed a new stone mill, the ATC
Mill Number One. A new stone bridge replaced the old Iron Works Bridge
across the Willimantic River.
In 1823 - Mathew Watson and brothers
Nathan and Arunah Tingley formed the Windham Manufacturing Company and
opened a cotton mill a few hundred yards upriver from Lee’s mill. The
factory neighborhood of Tingleyville formed around the mill
The Windham Manufacturing Company employed 376 workers. Most of the men were full-time, while most of the women were part-time. Male weavers earned about $2.50 a week, and made a little less than $200 a year. Female workers earned about half of that. The Company often paid workers in produce such as rye whisky, rum, gin, brandy (6 cents a shot), geese (40 cents each), nails, sugar, cheese, wood, lard, flour, potatoes, mutton, apples, cabbages, cinnamon, and salt as well as cash. The Company owned a boardinghouse, and the boarders’ rents were deducted from their pay. The Company spent more than $1,400 for food for boarders, $340 for new looms, and $165 for a schoolhouse. The Company purchased most items from local merchants.
1828 - The Windham Manufacturing Company built a second, stone mill, 46 x 118 feet. It also built “a substantial stone dam across the [Willimantic] river,” along with a wooden bridge – Bridge Street
1845 - The Windham Manufacturing Company expanded its mills, adding a 50 x 100 foot extension. It also built 62 brick tenements on 37 acres along the river, known as “Yellow Row.” It also opened a company store
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