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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
Although the Beverly Cotton Manufactory and its records disappeared without a trace more than a century ago, it has received an honored place in almost all the subsequent histories of manufacturing. The reason for this interest is suggested by the title of the most complete account of the Manufactory, Robert S. Rantoul's “The First Cotton Mill in America.” The present writer is more interested in how the mill came into being and how it functioned, than in the controversy as to whether Beverly, or Worcester, or Philadelphia, or South Carolina is entitled to claim the earliest cotton mill; however, as a native of Beverly he will have something to say on this subject at the end of the article. Recent discoveries at the Rhode Island Historical Society, the Massachusetts State Archives, and the Beverly City Hall help to fill out the basic documents used by Rantoul and all subsequent writers. The most significant of these basic documents relates to the incorporation of the Manufactory in 1789 and the succeeding petitions to the State Legislature for aid.
1 Reprinted from the Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, vol. xxxiii, 1898. The addenda include the Act of Incorporation of Feb. 3, 1789; the Petition of June 2, 1790; an Act for a Lottery, June 24, 1790; a Resolve granting lottery tickets, Mar. 4, 1791; the entry from Washington's Diary for Friday, Oct. 30, 1789; letter from George Cabot to Benjamin Goodhue, Mar. 16, 1790; a portion of the letter from Cabot to Goodhue, Apr. 6, 1790; letter from George Cabot to Alexander Hamilton, Sept. 6, 1791; and (copied from Batchelder) the Resolve for encouraging the Manufactory, Feb. 17, 1789. The Cabot letters were originally published in Lodge's, Henry CabotLife and Letters of George Cabot (Boston, 1877).Google Scholar
2 Batchelder, Samuel, Introduction and Early Progress of the Cotton Manufacture in the United States (Boston, 1863), pp. 26–33.Google Scholar
3 Rantoul, op. cit., p. 33.
4 The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., Pastor of the East Church (4 vols.; Salem, 1905–1914). Entries for Sept. 24, 1790; Aug. 23, 1791; Jan. 16, 1793; May 24, 1794; Aug. 12, 1795; Oct. 10, 1796; Sept. 9, 1797. Other diary entries relating to the Cotton Manufactory include Warville du Brissot, New Travels in the United States, (2d ed.; London, 1794, entry for Oct., 1788); Diary of John Jeffries, MS copy, Massachusetts Historical Society, entry for Aug. 19, 1790; Wansey, Henry, The Journal of an Excursion to the United States of North America in the Summer of 1794 (Salisbury, 1796Google Scholar; entry for May 31, 1794, p. 84).
5 Salem Mercury, Apr. 22, 1788; May 6, 1788; Jan. 6, 1789; Nov. 3, 1789; Dec. 1, 1789 (advertisements); Salem Gazette, Oct. 14, 1828; Essex Register, Oct. 16, 1828. Boston newspapers, such as the Massachusetts Centinel and Columbian Centinel, frequently copied items from the Salem papers.
The recollections of Mrs. Betsy Balch Grant appeared in the Boston Traveller (dispatch from Beverly, Feb. 12, 1863) and the Boston Journal (dispatch from Beverly, July 18, 1861). Copies of these are in the Beverly Historical Society, as well as a letter from Abram Caldwell to Robert S. Rantoul, Feb. 9, 1893, and from William H. Grant to A. A. Galloupe, Feb. 10, 1893. Joshua Herrick's letter to Samuel Batchelder is quoted in Bagnall, William R., The Textile Industries of the United States (Cambridge, 1893), vol. i, pp. 98–99.Google Scholar
6 The Moses Brown papers at the Rhode Island Historical Society contain letters from John Bailey, Jr., dated Hanover (Mass.), May 18 and Nov. 20, 1788, in which he states that he has visited Orr, inspected the machines, and is sending two spinning frames. A jenny and a carding machine in use by Almy & Brown were copied from the Beverly models; see Bagnall, William R., Samuel Slater and the Early Development of the Cotton Manufacture in the United States (Middletown, Conn., 1890), pp. 33–34.Google Scholar The writer is indebted to Clarkson R. Collins for several references to the Moses Brown Papers.
7 Deborah's first husband, Stephen Cabot, died in 1778; in 1793 she became Joseph Lee's second wife. See Briggs, L. Vernon, History and Genealogy of the Cabot Family, 1475–1927 (2 vols.; Boston, 1927).Google Scholar
8 Among the Cabots, John held 10 fortieths; George, 4; Andrew, 2; Deborah, 2; Henry Higginson, 4.
9 Information about many of these men is to be found in Stone's, Edwin M.History of Beverly (Boston, 1843), pp. 123–149, 160–166.Google Scholar Dr. Fisher was an especially colorful figure; serving as a surgeon on a privateer during the Revolution, he was captured but made his escape. He was later president of the Massachusetts Medical Society and of the Beverly Bank. He graduated from Harvard in 1766, John Cabot in 1763, and Moses Brown in 1768. George Cabot was a member of the Class of 1770, but did not graduate; however, he received an honorary degree in 1779.
10 This came from Savannah, whereas the cotton later used came from India. Five bales of cotton were imported on the Brigantine Fanny.
11 Schooner Lucy (Nov. 23); Schooner Jack (Dec. 11). The writer is indebted to Miss Alice G. Lapham for several references to the shipping papers in the Beverly Historical Society.
12 Almy & Brown in 1807 refused admittance to Isaac Briggs, prospective cotton manufacturer, on a tour of inspection. See Briggs' notebooks, now in the Maryland Historical Society.
13 Industrial and Commercial Correspondence of Alexander Hamilton, edited by Arthur H. Cole (Chicago, 1928), p. 76. The letter was dated Providence, July 22, 1791.
14 Port of Beverly, Entries and imposts, 1787–1789, Beverly Historical Society. Entries numbered 19, 21, 25, 30, 52, 59, 61, 63, 66, 72, 74, and 85 indicate the importation of cotton.
15 Records of the Naval Office, Beverly, vol. vi, Manifests, 1792–1794. On June 26, 1792, the sloop Polly left with five bales of cotton wool for Newburyport, and on July 16, 1792, the sloop Industry took a bale of cotton to Boston from Brown and Thorndike, consigned for Israel Thorndike. In September, 1795, Thorndike sent 21 bales of cotton by the brig Eliza to Ireland for sale there.
16 Bagnall, The Textile Industries, pp. 98–99.
17 Letter to Robert 8. Rantoul, Ipswich, Feb. 9, 1893; copy in Beverly Historical Society.
18 Moses Brown Papers, vol. vi (1787–1789), p. 69. The succeeding letter, also to Moses Brown from Somers and Leonard, is dated June 1, 1789. Joseph Alexander and James McKerries are mentioned in William R. Bagnall's Samuel Slater, op. cit., p. 35.
19 Moses Brown Papers (Miscellany), vol. i, p. 45.
20 Felt, Joseph Barlow, Annals of Salem (2d ed.; Salem, 1849).Google Scholar
21 Abstracted in Rantoul, but printed in Bagnall, The Textile Industries, pp. 91–92.
22 The accounts are summarized in Bagnall; but for completeness they have been printed, along with the 1790 accounts, in Appendix II to this article.
23 The Beverly tax records are kept in Beverly City Hall. The volume containing accounts for 1787–1790 is barely decipherable. The 1791 tax on the Proprietors of the Cotton Manufactory was as follows:
24 Dane Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
25 Journal of the House of Representatives, First Congress, second session; the National Archives has located a transcript of the report (unavailable).
26 Correspondence of Alexander Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 77–78.
27 These are included in Appendix II to this article.
28 Bagnall, The Textile Industries, p. 96.
29 Columbian Centinel, Feb. 19, 1791.
30 Moses Brown Papers, 1787–1789, p. 86. Brown's prospective employee is not named.
31 Laws and Resolves of Massachusetts, 1792–1793, p. 691.
32 Wansey, op. cit.
33 Bentley, Diary, Nov. 24, 1794, vol. ii, p. 113.
34 Thorndike transferred his business interests to Boston in 1810. When he died, in 1832, he left an estate of a million and a half dollars. Moses Brown retired from active business in 1800; according to Stone (op. cit.), it was “with an ample fortune.” He bequeathed $2,000 to the “theological institution at Cambridge” upon his death in 1820. George Cabot, upon his removal from Beverly to Boston, served as President of the Boston Branch of the United States Bank, Director of the Suffolk Insurance Company, and President of the Boston Marine Insurance Company. He also continued his political services until not long before his death, in 1823. John Cabot also moved away from Beverly, and died in 1821. Isaac Chapman died in Beverly in 1798. Dr. Fisher outlived the rest (he died in 1833) and bequeathed $20,000 to found the Fisher Professorship of Natural History at Harvard.
35 History of Essex County, comp. by D. Hamilton Hurd (Philadelphia, 1888), vol. ii, p. 1645.
36 Bagnall, The Textile Industries, p. 97.
37 William, P. and Cutler, Julia P., Life, Journals and Correspondence of Rev. Manassah Cutler (Cincinnati, 1888), vol. ii, p. 113.Google Scholar
38 Stone, History of Beverly, pp. 85–86. Later there was a factory at the head of the Danvers River near Frost Fish Brook. This may have been the “steam factory,” which Stone states was incorporated in 1841. On a manuscript map of the area, drawn about 1850, it is called the “iron factory.” These rivers are tidal in nature.
39 Essex Register, Oct. 16, 1828.
40 DrWoodbury, C. J. H., “Development of Textile Mill Design,” American Wool and Cotton Reporter, Jan. 6, 1910, p. 24.Google Scholar
41 It is of interest that a Beverly boy, Thomas P. Ives, went to work for the Browns, married the daughter of Nicholas, and in 1792 became a partner of Brown Benson & Ives. See Hedges, James B., The Browns of Providence Plantations (Cambridge, Mass., 1952), p. 20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
42 White, George S., Memoir of Samuel Slater (2d ed.; Philadelphia, 1836), pp. 52–54.Google Scholar
43 Batchelder, op. cit.
44 Rich, George, “The Cotton Industry in New England,” New England Illustrated Magazine, Oct., 1890, vol. iii, pp. 167–191.Google Scholar
45 Bagnall, The Textile Industries.
46 Clark, Victor S., History of Manufactures in the United States, 1607–1860 (Washington, 1916).Google Scholar
47 Kohn, August, The Cotton Milk of South Carolina, reprinted from The News and Courier (Charleston, 1907).Google Scholar
48 Wallace, David D., History of South Carolina (New York, 1934), vol. 2, p. 408.Google Scholar
49 Docket file, Chapter 96, Resolves of 1790, Massachusetts State Archives. So far as the writer can ascertain, this has not been printed or referred to in the accounts of the Manufactory.
50 These accounts are summarized in Bagnall, The Textile Industries, but they seem not to have been printed completely.
51 These accounts are summarized in several histories of the Manufactory, but seem not to have been printed in full. A manuscript copy is in the Beverly Historical Society.