Bristol County, Massachusetts - Chapter 9: From 1890 to 1916 - Industrial Development, 1924

The greatest celebration in the city's history occurred October 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14, 1897, when the semi-centennial of the incorporation was carried out. The committee on celebration was headed by Mayor Charles S. Ashley as chairman; Stephen A. Brownell, vice-chairman; Zephaniah W. Pease, secretary, and James L. Hathaway, treasurer. Upon the opening day, William W. Crapo and George F. Tucker delivered addresses, and a great chorus sang a semi-centennial ode. Upon succeeding days there were processions and sports. A dinner was an incident, at which addresses were delivered by Attorney-General Hosea M. Knowlton, Governor Roger Walcott, and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.

It has now been seventy years since New Bedford incorporated as a city with a population of about 13,000. Its population in 1890 was 40,733, and in 1918 it was 118,159, according to the Federal census the fourth city in the State in number of inhabitants. It ranks first in the United States in the manufacture of fine grades of cotton goods and fine cotton yarns, and first among the fine goods mills in the number of spindles in operation.

The cotton mills ran to full capacity all through the year, mechanics and laborers were better employed than for several years, merchants wholesale and retail experienced a general prosperous year (1918) while the National and Savings banks of the city and the Trust Company did the largest business in their history. The credit of the New Bedford cotton mill corporations is unsurpassed, as during the sixty-nine years they have been engaged in the making of cotton cloths and yarns they have paid one hundred cents on every dollar of indebtedness, and their 1916 statement showed them stronger than ever before financially. Also their reputation for producing goods of the highest quality has been fully maintained.

But there is other manufacturing of many kinds conducted in this city. The New Bedford Cordage Company, with $400,000 capital, is a survival of the early days when the outfitting of ships and the marine trade was at its zenith. The company was founded in 1842 by Joseph Ricketson, William J.

Rotch and Benjamin §. Roth, and incorporated in 1846 with a. capital of $60,000, increased in 1849 to $75,000; later to $200,000, and still later doubled. Other great corporations are the Taunton and New Bedford Copper Company, organized in 1860 with $250,000 capital; the Morse Twist Drill and Machine Company, incorporated in 1864 with $30,000, increased January 1883, to $600,000. Stephen A. Morse, the inventor of the twist drill made by the company, began business in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and removed to New Bedford in 1865. The manufacture of glass here was commenced in 1861, by the New Bedford Glass Company. In 1869 the plant was purchased by W. L. Libbey & Co., became the Mount Washington Glass Company in 1871; was reorganized in 1876; and in 1894 became by consolidation a part of the Pairpont Manufacturing Company. Art manufacturing began early, the Tabers being early booksellers and art dealers. The firm of Charles Taber & Co. was a leader in that business for forty-five years. The Taber Art Company incorporated January 1, 1893, with a capital of $300,000; became a part of the Taber-Prang Art Company in 1897, and in 1898 the business was removed to Springfield, Massachusetts. Shoe manufacturing has long been a great industry, the Cushing & Boucher and the E. E. Taylor companies being the present representatives of the business. Carriage building was commenced a century ago, by Josiah Brownell, in a small shop on the corner of Fourth and Spring streets; became an extensive industry at one time, and yet survives.

The demand of seafaring men created a great demand for ship-bread, and from 1822 to 1867, when the demand from whalers practically ceased, its manufacture was an important item. Samuel Watson carried on for forty years the bakery established in 1822 by Enoch Horton, who passed it on to Watson & Manchester, by whom it was sold to Mr. Watson. David A. Snell gained the widest reputation as a baker, he first establishing a bakery at the corner of William and North Water streets in 1857. He sold out in 1859, and at once established a patent oven and bakery, the first in New England, and during the Civil War operated his plant in executing large contracts for the Union army. The Snell Biscuit Company is founded on that business.

One of the great manufacturing and business houses of the place is the Pairpont Corporation, capitalization increased about 1918 to $2,000,000. This was originally the Pairpont Manufacturing Company, organized in 1880, T. J. Pairpont, from whom the corporation takes its name, being the first superintendent. He resigned in 1885 and was succceeded by Thomas A. Tripp. The first building was erected in 1880, and additions have been constant until the plant now spreads out over a large area. The first capital of $100,000 became $400,000 in July, 1887, $1,000,000 in 1896, and $2,000,000 in 1917. The corporation acquired the Mount Washington Glass Company in 1894, and both in New Bedford and New York City maintain magnificent displays of their lines of manufacture. Their five exclusive lines there exhibited are cut-glass, silver-plate, electroliers, Sheffield reproductions and prize cups. Their products are unsurpassed for beauty in design and quality of workmanship, facts attested by their world-wide trade. Other large and important manufacturing corporations are the Blackmer Cut Glass Co., capital $20,000; Continental Wood Screw Co., $150,000; E. E. Taylor Co., $1,000,000; George Kirby Jr. Paint Co., $50,000; Morse Twist

Concerning the city of Bedford it may be said that the immense textile manufacturing business of Bedford has won for her great fame. Her whaling industry reached its greatest height in 1857, when the fleet consisted of three hundred and twenty-nine vessels of all kinds, requiring crews aggregating 10,000 men. 'The capital invested was about $12,000,000 and the value of the catch in 1857 was in oil and bone $6,178,728. The decline may best be understood by comparing the fleet of 1857 with that of the present (1918) day, when a few old ships and a dozen crafts comprised the fleet. In 1916 the value of the sperm oil catch of vessels owned in New Bedford was $180,000. No whale oil nor whale bone was taken. Whale and sperm oil is yet refined and sperm candles and spermaceti manufactured by the Frank L. Young Co. It was this great whaling industry of the years prior to 1857 which was the stumbling-block in the way of the Wamsutta mills, the first cotton factory established in New Bedford. As it is now one of the greatest of the city's textile plants and known wherever cotton goods are used. In the autumn of 1846 Joseph Grinnell then Congressman from the New Bedford district, headed a subscription list with $10,000 and secured for New Bedford a cotton mill which was intended for Georgia. A charter secured in 1846 by Abraham H. Howland from the Massachusetts legislature for a company styled the Wamsutta mills was turned over to Mr. Grinnell and his associates, who intended to secure $300,000 capital and erect a cotton mill of 15,000 spindles and 300 looms. But capital was enamored with whaling investment and its sure profits and hardly noticed such a common place suggestion as the erection of a cotton mills. So the best that could be done was $160,000 and with this they were obliged to start. Mill No. 1 was built to accommodate 15,000 spindles and 300 looms as intended, but the company was obliged to start the mill with 10,000 spindles and 200 looms. The machinery was started in 1849, all the overseers, carpenters, machinists and operatives being brought from Rhode Island, Connecticutt and Massachusetts towns. To provide living accommodations for these the company was compelled to build and maintain tenements and boarding houses. The first product of the mill was the since famous Wamsutta sheeting. In 1854 the capital was increased to $600,000 and a second mill was built. From that date to the present expansion of plant and capital have been frequent, the eight mills of the company (in 1918) making over two hundred varieties of cotton goods. Joseph Grinnell, first president, died February 7, 1885, and was succeeded by Andrew G. Pierce, who had been treasurer for thirty years. Mr. Pierce was succeeded as president by William W. Crapo and again became treasurer of the company. Later Edward T. Pierce acted as treasurer of the mill a long period."

The success of the Wamsutta mills and the gradual falling away of profits of whaling, induced capital to look more favorably upon cotton manufacturing in New Bedford. In 1871 the first of the Potomska Mills was built in the south end of the city. This company was formed with a capital of $600,000 which has since been doubled. James Robinson president, was succeeded by Edward Kilburn, he by Andrew J. Pierce also a one-time president and long time treasurer of the Wamsutta mills. With 1881 the "boom" was ushered in. Came the Grinnell Manufacturing Co. in 1882, the Acushnet Mill Corporation, the Oneko Woolen Mills, the New Bedford Manufacturing Co. all in the same year; in 1888-89 the City Manufacturing Co., the Howland Mills Corporation, with William D. Howland its first treasurer, the Hathaway Manufacturing Co., the Bennett Manufacturing Co., all were organized. The Bristol Manufacturing, the Columbia Spinning, the Pierce and the Rotch Spinning companies all date their existence from 1892; the Whitman Mill from 1895; the Dartmouth since 1896 and the others came in rapid succession. For equipment and product of New Bedford mills, 1922:

A striking feature of New Bedford's prosperity in 1916 was the number and estimated cost of new buildings in course of construction. The city applied for permits to expend nearly a half million dollars in new buildings, including a new fire station, a police station, municipal baths, a pumping station and a portable schoolhouse. Private corporations applied for permits to build three new cotton mills and additions to other cotton mills or cotton mill storehouses. The New Bedford Gas and Electric Light Company built and equipped a thoroughly modern power station at a cost of a million and a half dollars, and the Morse Twist Drill & Machine Company began a large addition. 'The Cheney building in the dry goods district and the Holmes coal handling plants are examples of the substantial buildings and extensions erected for business purposes in all parts of the city.

No better proof of 'New Bedford's claim to be one of the fastest growing municipalities in the East is needed than the fact that during the year 1922 an excess of. $7,000,000 were spent by the people of this city in constructing new homes, new churches, new tenements and new garages for themselves. The City Government alone spent $135,404.29 upon repairs and alterations to school houses and other public buildings. The following extract from the annual report of the Superintendent of Public Buildings for 1922 is of interest, showing as it does the recent building activity during the past year in New Bedford, the record of the year for expenditure in building exceeding that of any previous year in the history of the city:

A total of $7,057,240 was expended for new construction in the city of New Bedford during the year 1922, the largest expenditure for construction work in the history of the city. The next largest year was in 1910 when $7,037,337 was expended. The increase in 1922 was $1,240,609. The number of building permits granted for construction work in the city in 1922 was 1,216, the largest since the year 1913, when 1,245 building permits were granted.

The building figures for the year 1922 are all the more significant in view of the fact that more than half of the total expenditures was for dwelling house construction while in the year 1910 there was a large volume of industrial construction. The year 1910 was big boom year, when in addition to the industrial construction there were erected 639 dwellings, as compared with 544 erected in 1922. There were added in 1922 880 new tenements, 374 more than in 1921, and the greatest number added in the last ten years.

Another significant item of construction during the year 1922 was the large number of garages erected, 477 of them as compared with 352 in 1921. The cost of garage construction in 1922 was $643,740. Of the 544 new dwelling houses added in 1922, 320 of them were of the two-family type and 216 were of the one-family or cottage type. The building statistics for 1922 are classified as follows:

During the past winter two fine modern theatres have been built in the center of the city, the Empire and the Zeiterion, each at a cost of approximately $250,000. These complete a trio. of modern theatres of concrete and steel construction, beautifully finished in their interior and located in the very heart of the city's business district.

New Bedford's modern and beautiful hotel, which was completed last year, and which has two hundred rooms with baths, has, during the past year, fulfilled the greatest need not only of New Bedford but of Bristol County. It has been patronized to a great extent by automobile tourists to and from Cape Cod, which is rapidly becoming the "Playground of the Country," this summer.

New Bedford makes no pretentions of being a fishing center of any importance like Gloucester or Boston, but the amount handled is not insignificant ; a century and a half has passed since New Bedford's history began as a definite part of the Great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the old town of Dartmouth as "Bedford Village." She has suffered as few cities have, and triumphed. She has long since been known as the leader in the production of textile manufactures. There is strength and solidity about her institutions, civic, religious, educational and commercial, that satisfies, and in all that goes to make a modern city there seems nothing lacking at this time - 1923..