to have enjoyed these meetings so well that they held them on the slightest provocation. There were ten of them called during the year 1779. It is to the credit of the young town, however, that nearly all of these meetings were called to see what could be done in aid of the Revolution.
From this time on, the small manufacturing concerns began to appear. There were sawmills for working the neighboring pines into merchantable lumber; there were gristmills; there were mills for producing oil from flaxseed; there were forges erected, and iron ore from the vicinity and from afar was brought and turned into wrought iron; there were marble quarries opened; and limestone was broken up and burned for lime. In fact, all the small industries open to a people who could not gain a living by agriculture were exploited one by one. Of course money was scarce, and tradition says the inhabitants of Adams often went to their more favored neighbors in Pittsfield and Williamstown and had notes for ten dollars discounted. But these industries, although humble, had a sure foundation, and they were backed by the indomitable pluck of a group of men who have transmitted the same quality to their successors of to-day.
In 1811 the cotton industry began to reach out from Rhode Island, its first home in this country. Adams was ready for just such an enterprise; and we find the "Old Brick Factory" was built in this year and the cotton industry was fairly launched.
North Adams Churches.
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