Three autograph letters signed to A.D. Lockwood & Co, textile manufacturers in Slatersville and Providence
New York & Providence: 1843-46. Quarto and small folio, all bifoliate, with address panels on versos of integral leaves, all with previous folds; very good. The first, a tightly packed 3-page letter is from Wells & Spring, New York. April 1, 1843, to Mssrs. Lockwood & Co., Slatersville, R.I. regarding sample packages of cotton; the second, from J. G. Dudley, New York. July 9, 1843, to Mssrs. A. D. Lockwood & Co., Providence, RI, regarding power looms and cotton; and the third, from John Butterworth, North Providence, RI. July 18, 1846, regarding the purchase of looms. The history of the Wauregan Mills, the Quinebaug Company, and other related mills in New England (and eventually in the South) is very much tied to the history of the Lockwood family. These letters to Amos Lockwood at his mill in Slatersville, RI, show the interest developing in New York of the efficacy and popularity of clean well-produced cotton and the use of the recent power loom in the textile manufactory. Wells & Spring, however, have a complaint about Samuel Slater. Wells & Spring (founder: Gideon Hill Wells), New York City commission agents dealing in cotton goods, write at great length to Lockwood on the importance of quality in his sample bales of cotton. "If the first lots they buy (customers) open well and give good satisfaction & look cheap to them, they become regular customers and afterwards buy with confidence & without scouring through the market to find cheaper goods. We shall thus, we trust, be able to establish channels for all you will send to this market...the goods we recently received from Mssrs. S. & J. Slater are very satisfactory as regards weight & evenness of fabric & thread but the cotton is too specky and we notice a great many black places in the filling caused as our Mr. W. supposes by the dirt & oil from the pickers and the picker rods...which we hope may be avoided in your goods." He goes on to suggest a stamp for the goods advertising them as "Lockwood Family Shirtings" and discusses the practice of the grading of product such as done by "Mssrs. S. S. & Son at their Webster Mill." The second letter from a Mr. Dudley in New York (possibly Stephen Dudley, b. 1798, and son Joseph, b. 1824, merchants in Buffalo, NY) requests bales of cotton and power looms. Dudley mentions that he has sold "thirty bales of the O'Deans" cotton at 7 cts cash. "The goods to be furnished this month & to be of first rate quality ... I want at least ten bales per week of your goods through the season & perhaps more. Also please send forward some more 'power looms..." In the third letter John Butterworth writes from North Providence in 1846: "I see in an advertisement that you want to sell 50 4/4 looms. The subscriber in company with another man is running a small mill near Providence called Wenscutt Mill is now making thread but wishes to alter (?) on weaving would like to buy 24 looms if he could obtain them...at about 10 dollars a piece." The owner of the above referenced early thread mill may be Thomas Whipple. "Wanskuck appears in Providence records as early as 1655. The name, also spelled Wanscott, Wenscott, or Wenscutt in old documents is an Indian word perhaps meaning 'low lands.' The area was part of a section of the Providence 'north woods' set off as a separate town in 1765. Residents petitioned to have the new municipality called 'Wenscutt' but officials insisted that it be called North Providence. The Wanskuck Company prospered through the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In 1882 it purchased the Whipple Estate, site of a late cotton mill established by 1835 and known as Thomas Whipple's Factory." Amos DeForest Lockwood (1811-1884), became involved in the textile industry at the age of 16 when was employed by the store of Peck and Wilkinson. At 21, he became an assistant factory superintendent in Slatersville, R.I., working for Almy, Brown & Slater, the historic firm which had employed Samuel Slater to design the first successful cotton machinery in America in the 1790s. Lockwood quickly advanced by forming A. D. Lockwood and Company which leased the Slater Mills. The company consisted of himself, his brother Moses Lockwood and his brother-in-law Rhodes B. Chapman. A.D. Lockwood & Company accepted numerous projects in New England to build, remodel, or enlarge mills with modernized equipment. Lockwood developed an interest in mill engineering and became known as the "mill doctor." Lockwood also served as agent of the Franklin Company and the Androscoggin Mills. Lockwood's work at Androscoggin began a chain reaction of lucrative jobs. Beginning with the Francis Skinner mills, next Pepperell, he became consulting engineer to the biggest and best. Finally, in Lewiston he replaced the famed David Whitman who had died. Lockwood was sent to Europe to see the developments there and if they would be lucrative for America. From this trip and his advice such inventions as the slasher, the English fly frames, and the light weight spindle were brought to the American scene. At age 60, Lockwood moved to Boston to open a consulting firm known as A.D. Lockwood & Co. cotton mill engineers. Amos Lockwood & Co. lives on under the name of Lockwood Greene; America's oldest professional services firm in continuous operation for industrial and power engineering and construction. Headquartered in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Lockwood Greene serves Fortune 500 and international companies around the globe. Item #56071
Price: $475.00
