Part 1

A SKETCH OF THE EARLY DAYS

OF THE

WOOLEN INDUSTRY

IN

NORTH ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS

AN ADDRESS

DELIVERED BEFORE THE NORTH ANDOVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY FEBRUARY 13, 1925

BY

NATHANIEL STEVENS

NORTH ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 1925

EARLY DAYS OF THE WOOLEN INDUSTRY IN NORTH ANDOVER

In the early records of the Town of Andover, Massachusetts, we find the following vote recorded under date of the year 1787: “We hereby resolve to refrain from, as far as in our power, to prevent the excessive use and consumption of articles of foreign manufacture, and we will exert our best endeavors for the promotion of industry and our own manufactures. And in particular, that we will exert ourselves to increase our wool and flax as far as is practicable, that we will as far as may be, avoid killing our sheep, or killing them for slaughter after shearing time, till the wool be serviceable for clothing. And that we will exert ourselves to promote and encourage the manufactures of wool and flax and other raw materials into such articles as shall be useful in the community.”

This is the first definite action taken by the voters of the Town to encourage manufacturing. Previous to the Revolution, England had discouraged manufacturing in this country. With the exception of saw and grist mills, the powder mill of Samuel Phillips, which was started in 1776 on the site of the Marland Mills in Andover, was the only industry in the town. This industry had a precarious existence. The factory blew up in 1778, and every one who lived near it feared for his life. It was later turned into a paper mill, but this did not succeed very well, and finally in the early part of the last century Abraham Marland established a woolen mill on the site.

In 1793 two brothers came to this country from England, Arthur and John Scholfield, who were later followed by their brother James. The Scholfield brothers were mechanics and inventors of cards and spinning machinery as well as manufacturers. John Scholfield built a spinning jenny of eight spindles and a card of one cylinder.

The Scholfield brothers set up their machines in 1793 in Lord Timothy Dexter’s stable in Newburyport and operated them by hand to show them to the capitalists who later established them in business in the town of Byefield. They soon moved from Byefield to Mountville, Connecticut. Arthur, however, remained in Connecticut only a short time, and then moved on to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he interested some local men in manufacturing. This enterprise was not very successful. Arthur died at Pittsfield in 1822. The original carding machine made by his brother, John Scholfield, is now owned by the Davis and Furber Machine Company of North Andover, Massachusetts.

James Scholfield, the youngest brother, came to North Andover in 1802 and purchased the lower fall at Sutton’s Mills for $120. and operated by water power a carding machine. This carding machine is said to have been the third carding machine operated in this country. He lived in the long, one-story house which now stands near Sutton’s Corner, and one end of this house was then used as a weaving room.

It was in the summer of 1802 that this factory, which was the first woolen mill in North Andover, began operations. It continued to run under James Scholfield’s management until 1812, when he sold out to Abel and Pascal Abbot, and in 1813 he became Superintendent of Nathaniel Stevens’ mill. The original Scholfield mill was sold to Abraham Marland and Isaac Osgood in 1813. In 1819 Samuel Ayer was the sole owner, and in 1826 the property passed to Eben Sutton, of Danvers, Massachusetts, who was a descendant of Richard Sutton, an expert weaver, who came to Andover from Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1658, but remained in town only a short time.

Eben Sutton died in 1832, when the ownership passed to his sons, William and Eben. In 1836 Eben bought out William’s interest and became sole owner of the property, which he operated with great success until his death in 1864. After the death of Eben, the property passed to his nephews, William and General Eben Sutton of our time.

Four generations of this family have been important factors in the industrial and social life of North Andover. Those who have been active in the manufacturing business have shown great skill, and have been men of high character and undoubted word. The business founded by Eben Sutton has been progressive and successful. It is interesting to note that the family name dates back two hundred and sixty years in the records of the Town of Andover, now North Andover.

On the next fall of Cochichewick Brook above Sutton’s Mill was the Saunders factory which was located between the site of the present Osgood Mills and Sutton Mill dam near Sutton Street. This fall was overflowed when the dam at Sutton Street was raised and at that time the mill, which was operated by Daniel Saunders, went out of existence.

We next come to the fall which is now known as Osgood Mills but for many years was known as Hodges Mill. Captain George Hodges was long one of the most honored citizens of North Andover, and his home which is now the residence of Mr. Herbert Field, was for many years one of the social centres of the town, a place where his friends and those of his sons and daughters were always welcome. Captain Hodges filled many town offices. He was Representative to the General Court and State Senator, a man of great dignity and wisdom, possessed of a kindly heart and beloved by his fellow citizens. His portrait hangs in the Reference Room of the Stevens Memorial Library and is well worth seeing. In its features one can see the strength of character and dignity which history tells us he possessed.

Captain George Hodges had come to Andover North Parish from Salem in 1828 and with Edward Pranker commenced the manufacture of white flannels in the old stone mill which stands in the centre of the dam near the present Osgood Mills. The company consisted of Captain George Hodges, Dr. Joseph Kittredge, and Eben Sutton. After the death of Dr. Kittredge, his interest passed to Eben Sutton.

After the death of Captain Hodges the business was conducted by his sons for several years, and in 1867 a stock company was organized with General Eben Sutton as Treasurer and Mr. John Elliot as Superintendent. This corporation operated the mills until 1900 when they passed to the present owners, M. T. Stevens and Sons Company.

The next fall on Cochichewick Brook was the location of the saw and grist mill of Isaac Osgood. On this site has since been built the largest industry in our town, and this Society could well spend an evening listening to an historical sketch of this enterprise which was founded in 1836 by Charles Barnes, George H. Gilbert, and Parker Richardson, and continued by Benjamin W. Gleason, Charles Furber, Joseph Stone, John L. Wiley, and Deacon George L. Davis. These, and their successors, have been men of exceptional ability and character.

We will now pass to the upper fall on Cochichewick Brook where Nathaniel Stevens established a woolen mill in 1813 on the site of the Governor Bradstreet Grist Mill, later owned by Joseph Parker, who had bought it for one hundred pounds sterling from the Bradstreet heirs. It is to this industry I shall devote the principal part of this paper. I have lived in the environment of this location all my life, and although my grandfather, Captain Nathaniel Stevens, died when I was only eight years old, I have through my father and other relatives come to know the history of the business during the early part of the nineteenth century, and can probably speak of it with as much authority as any one at the present time.

The fifth recorded settler in the Town of Andover was one John Stevens, and in the fifth generation from him was one Jonathan Stevens, born in 1747. The bronze tablet which has lately been erected by his descendants in the lower part of the large field opposite Pleasant Street, near the Stevens Mill Pond, marks the site of the latter’s birthplace. This Jonathan Stevens was a farmer and currier of leather, and owned one half interest in the Bradstreet Grist Mill with Joseph Kittredge, which he later conveyed to his son Nathaniel, when the latter began the manufacture of woolen goods. He also owned all of the land from Academy Road, including the site of the present home of Miss Harriet Smith and extending down as far as the Salem and Lawrence branch of the Boston and Maine Railroad which included some of the best farming land in the town. This Jonathan had a wonderful military record as a soldier in the Revolutionary Army, in Col. James Frye’s Regiment, Captain Thomas Poore’s Company at Lexington and Concord, in Captain Benjamin Farnum’s Company at Bunker Hill, and Captain Samuel Johnson’s Company at Ticonderoga.

From the records it would appear that he was not a natural leader of men because he only rose to the position of sergeant in his military career, but we must infer that he was a man of great patriotism and of strong physique to have left such an honorable record of service to his country. He lived to see his son Nathaniel well established in the wool manufacturing business before he passed away in 1834 at the age of eighty-seven.

Jonathan’s wife, Susannah Bragg, died in 1840 at the age of eighty-five. They had sixteen children, seven of whom lived to be over seventy years of age. One of these was Nathaniel, the subject of this sketch.

Nathaniel Stevens was born in Andover North Parish, now North Andover, on October 18, 1786, in a house which was burned about 1870, located where Mr. Granville E. Foss’s house now stands. Being one of such a large family, his father could only give him an education such as the boys were able to obtain during the winter months in the local schools. At an early age, as was the custom in those days, he was bound out to John Carlton on what is now the North Andover Town Home, where he remained for four years. It is fair to presume that when he arrived at his majority he started out to make his own way in the world. He worked in a livery stable in Danvers for a short period, and then shipped before the mast from Salem and spent the next two years on the sea, making a voyage to Leghorn. At that time Salem was an important seaport.

Let us for a moment picture as well as we can the political and social atmosphere of the time in which Nathaniel Stevens passed his boyhood days. He was born ten years after the Declaration of Independence, and three years before the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. We can well imagine the deep patriotism and intense enthusiasm for the country felt by all with whom he had associated in his childhood, during the days of the new Republic. When he gave up the sea and returned to North Andover in 1812, he was twenty-six years of age. We find him keeping a grocery store in his native town near the Unitarian church at the North Parish, and judging by the names on his books, he was evidently a young man of some character and standing in the community. His old store books, kept by him while in the grocery business, are still in existence, and on them are entered the names of many prominent citizens of Andover North Parish, among them Dr. Thomas Kittredge, Dr. Joseph Kittredge, (the former the great-grandfather and the latter the grandfather of our honored citizen, Dr. Joseph Kittredge), Jedidiah Farnum, Moody Bridges, William Johnson, Joseph Peters, Enoch Poor, Samuel Phillips, Levi Farnum, Dean Chickering, and many other names of well-known men of the time.

During the War of 1812 there was a demand for woolen goods, and the attention of Nathaniel Stevens was directed towards establishing a woolen factory. In 1813 we find the conveyance to him, already referred to, from his father, Jonathan Stevens, of an undivided half of a grist mill and appurtenances upon Cochichewick Brook, upon the site where Governor Bradstreet is said to have built a grist mill early in the settlement of the colony. The other one half of this property was owned by Joseph Kittredge. Each of these two men, Dr. Kittredge and Nathaniel Stevens, then conveyed an undivided third of his undivided half to Josiah Monroe, and by these conveyances, Nathaniel Stevens, Dr. Joseph Kittredge and Josiah Monroe became each the owner of a third of the whole property and formed what was known locally as the “Factory Company” with James Scholfield as Superintendent. In 1817 Josiah Monroe released his interest to Nathaniel Stevens, and in 1831 Dr. Kittredge released his interest, whereupon Nathaniel Stevens became the sole owner of the property.

The business of manufacturing woolen goods was started in October, 1813. At this time the tariff act of 1812 was in effect. Under this tariff raw materials were free and there was a very small duty of say twenty-five percent on imported manufactured goods. It certainly required considerable courage to invest money in an American industry under such a low tariff and the disturbed condition of the country. The United States had declared war on Great Britain in 1812, and the Treaty of Ghent was not signed until December 24, 1814, and not ratified until February 18, 1815. Madison had entered upon his second term as President in 1813, and embargoes, rights of neutrals, rights of seamen, nullification, and state rights, were burning subjects of discussion. At that time there were eighteen states in the union with a population of 7,239,814, of which 1,191,000 were slaves.

For the first ten years the problems of manufacturing were almost insurmountable. After the close of the war in 1815, values dropped and many industries became bankrupt. With a limited knowledge of the business, the crude machinery available and no means of transportation on land except baggage wagons and stages, we can well imagine the difficulties of producing goods and finding a market for them. There is no record to show when the power loom became available, but it was not put into practical use until after 1830, so that the goods for some years must have been made on hand looms.

In 1815, Mr. Stevens married Harriet Hale, the daughter of Moses Hale, who operated a custom carding mill on Hale’s brook, now a part of the City of Lowell.

In 1818 Mr. Stevens was captain of a local military company and thereafter was known as “Captain Nat.”

After some years of doubtful success in making a variety of goods, Mr. Stevens called on Mr. Abraham Marland who had established a factory in what is now known as Abbott Village below the present stone bridge over Shawsheen River in Andover. Mr. Marland advised making flannels, as he had observed that in England the makers of flannels seemed to be successful. Mr. Stevens profited by Mr. Marland’s advice and concentrated his efforts on the manufacture of flannels. According to Bagnall’s History of the Early Textile Industries of the United States, Captain Stevens was the pioneer manufacturer of flannels in this country, and this was the entire product of the mill until 1876.

At first the goods were made in small quantities, and Mr. Stevens hauled them to Boston, selling what he could on the way. One day Captain Stevens was showing his goods to Mr. Abbott Lawrence, who said to him, “Young man, if you have any money, go home and shut down your mill and save what you have, for we can bring goods in here and sell them for less than you can manufacture them.” Mr. Stevens replied, “As long as I can get water to turn my wheel, I shall continue to run my mill.” Captain Stevens said afterwards that he did not tell Mr. Lawrence that he had just reached a point where there was a profit of five dollars in each piece.

It is interesting to note that some years later Mr. Lawrence became convinced that goods could be made at a profit in this country, and he was one of the early capitalists who invested money in the water power development at Lawrence. That city was later named for the Lawrence family. When the capitalists came from Boston by railroad to view the site of the proposed dam on the Merrimac River, the nearest railroad station was located in what is now known as Railroad Square in North Andover. Captain Stevens joined the party in viewing the site of the dam, and was a charter member of the Essex Company.

When Mr. Stevens was first married, he hired a house of Mr. John Phillips and signed a lease to return the house in the same condition as when he received it. Unfortunately the house was burned, and Mr. Phillips insisted that he rebuild the house, as the lease called for its return in the same condition as when he received it. This led to a famous lawsuit. The case was decided in favor of Mr. Phillips in the lower court with the following remarks: “The law does not protect men from their own carelessness or ignorance. The former they must cure; the latter they must provide against by asking counsel.” I mention this as I have no doubt it had a deep and lasting effect on future business transactions of Captain Stevens. After this house was burned, he lived for a short time in the small white building, now located on the premises of Stevens Mills, and later in a house which he built near the mill pond, and which has now been moved and is number 300 Pleasant Street. In 1846, he built the mansion on Academy Road near the Unitarian Church, which was for some years owned by his daughter, Ann Eliza, the wife of John H. D. Smith. This house is now owned by her descendants.

In 1824 Captain Stevens felt that he had overcome many problems in establishing his business and was getting onto a sound basis. The tariff act of 1824 placed a duty on wool, without an adequate duty on the manufactured goods. At this time Captain Stevens became an ardent advocate of free raw materials with a moderate duty on manufactured goods. He supported Andrew Jackson for the Presidency with his customary force in advocating any measure which seemed to him to be right and for the best interests of the country.

In 1826, he was one of the original directors when the Andover Bank was established. He resigned in 1832. My father has told me that there was a decided difference of opinion among the directors at that time which caused Captain Stevens to retire from the board. I have always assumed that it was because of his strong political leaning towards Andrew Jackson and the fact that Andrew Jackson was determined to put the United States Bank out of existence. According to history no one for some years believed he could do this, but when it came to the renewal of the charter in 1836, it was not renewed. In 1835, Captain Stevens was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, the only political office he ever held.

In 1835, conditions for doing business were somewhat improved by the building of railroads which made the markets somewhat more accessible, but the means of transportation for passengers were very crude and certainly must have been extremely trying to those who attempted long journeys, as you will conclude, when I read to you the record of a journey which Captain Stevens’ daughter made to Nashville, Tennessee. The account of the trip was written by Mrs. Hunting (Julia Maria Stevens) for my sister, Mrs. John F. Tyler.

“I was born August 6, 1823, the fourth child of Nathaniel and Harriet Hale Stevens. My first school teacher was Miss Lucinda Loring of Duxbury, who taught me to read, and to sew patch-work.

“In April, 1838, I went, with my cousins, Kate and Ellen Whipple, and Maria Swan of Lowell, to Hampton Falls, N. H., to attend Rockingham Academy. My Uncle Whipple had powder mills in Gorham, Maine, and in going to them always drove through the country, and had stopped many times in Hampton Falls and had seen this Academy and thought it would be a nice place for his daughters to go, and my parents consented to let me go with them. I think we all went in Uncle Whipple’s big carryall.

“We boarded with a Mrs. Wells, a lovely old Quaker lady, who had three daughters, and they made such a pleasant home for us, that we have ever since held that Sect in the highest esteem. The Quakers, or ‘Friends,’ as they always call themselves, never had any musical instruments, nor any singing, in their meetings, and did not approve of music at all, but yet Mrs. Wells let us have a Piano in our room, and never objected to our dancing, if we wished to. We soon became accustomed to their quaint ways, and plain language. I remember one thing which amused us very much. One day when we went down to dinner, we saw a little man standing at the table carving, _with his hat on_. There were other visitors, and we restrained our mirth, until we got back to our own room, and then we had a good laugh. This was the only time we ever saw a hat worn in a private house, though the men always wore them in Meeting. We were informed that this man had no hair on his head, and so wore his hat, instead of wearing a wig, as one of the ‘world’s people’ would have done.

“We had a vacation through the month of August, and went back to school in September.

“One day, early in October, my Father sent one of my brothers to bring me home, ‘to get ready to go to Tennessee.’ My Uncle Moses Stevens, and his daughter Sarah, had been spending several weeks in the East visiting relatives. They were about to return to their home in Nashville, and my Uncle insisted upon having one of our family go back with them. My Mother was not in very good health at that time and my elder sister, Harriet, could not be spared from home, so the lot seemed to fall upon me. Of course I was much pleased, and went home and spent a week in getting my modest little trunk in order, and on Tuesday, the 16th of October, 1838, started at half past nine in the morning on the railroad for Boston. It was the first time I had ever been on a railroad, and I remember the peculiar shaking and jolting of the car, as though it had some difficulty in starting.

“Our Western party consisted of Uncle Joe Peters and his son Joseph, Uncle Moses Stevens and his daughter Sarah B., and myself. Mr. Moody Spofford, formerly of Andover, was to meet us in New York. My Father and Mother, sister Harriet, Mary Bridges, and Uncle William Stevens accompanied us as far as Boston. We all dined at Wildes’ Hotel, 11 Elm Street, then we bade our friends good-bye and went to the Station, and at three o’clock left for Providence, arrived there about five p.m., and went directly on board a Steam Ferry boat and crossed Narragansett Bay, and then took cars for Stonington, Conn., where we arrived about nine o’clock, and went on board the Steamboat Lexington for New York. Arrived there at eight a.m.