Mohicans of Stockbridge




New England Merchancts in the 17th Century




North Adams

History of North Adams.



12½ to 17 cents per pound. Calicos were sold at an earlier date, also during, the war of 1812 and 1815, when importation was stopped, for $1 per yard, the quality not being superior to 10 cent goods of the present day. As late as 1825, English calicos sold from 30 to 42 cents per yard. Only six yards of goods were required in those days to make a lady’s dress.

In 1803, and for a number of years after, the wages of a farm laborer were $80 to $100 per year. Mechanics’ wages, including board, $1 per day. The ten hour system was not in vogue in those days, and carpenters were obliged to work during the long summer days from as early in the morning as they could see the head of a hammer until as late at night as they could see the head of a nail.

Corn and rye sold from 42 to 50 cents per bushel; oats from to 20 to 25; pork from $3.50 to $4; beef, $2.50 to S4 per cwt.; prime cows, in spring, $15 to $20; the best horses, $80. Mountain land adjacent to the village was not salable; $1 per acre was the highest price asked. About the year 1828 or ‘30, William Bradford bought 2100 acres of valuable wood land on Bald mountain, northwest of the village, for $1 per acre.

There were but few owners of real estate in the early settlement of the village, and no particular inducement for speculation either in the fertility of the soil or the rapid development of business. This was a narrow field for speculators or trading men. The scarcity of cash made swapping, bartering, or credit necessary in almost every kind of large transaction, and when real estate changed hands, it was generally by bargains of the above character. As an illustration of this Yankee characteristic may be mentioned George Whitman, an excellent citizen, a kind neighbor, and a man of honor and integrity in his dealings. He was one of our most conspicuous “trading men.” Being of rather infirm bodily health, be had to rely on his brains rather than his muscles for a livelihood. His widow related the following curious facts relative to her husband’s buying, selling and oftimes removing:

From 1807 to 1829 he owned eleven different dwellings and lots, and removed fifteen times. Sometimes she would move into a house, and before getting her goods in and fairly unpacked and settled her husband would make another trade, and the summons would come to remove again! Mr. Whitman owned at various times four farms, the entire lot of land now forming the Union, large lots of land in Clarksburg and Florida. He traded a farm for the Mansion House in Williamstown, traded that for a saw mill and land, and the last trade before his decease was for the valuable and quarry adjoining this village on the southwest, and now owned by Ivory Witt.

It is believed that up to the year 1825 no man settled here with as much as $2000 cash capital; consequently the growth of the place was exceedingly slow, and even that slow growth was interfered with by the fluctuating tariff policy of the federal government, which knocked about our early manufacturing enterprises like shuttlecocks.


WOOL CARDING, CLOTH FULLING, AND DRESSING.

About the year 1798-9, the first cloth dressing was done in North Adams by one Roaer Wing from Connecticut. The fulling mill was put into Captain Colgrove‘s grist mill, and the finishing was done in a small building near where Burlingame & Darby’s store now is. About 1801 a carding machine was also put into Captain Colgrove’s grist mill.

In 1801 David Estes, having constructed a dam across the north branch, erected the first buildings in town for carding wool and dressing cloth. They stood on the site of the Etes factory. Roger Wing carried on the clothier’s business successfully in the above named buildings five or six years. He also kept a hotel in the old portion of the "Black tavern." About 1804 be sold the tavern stand to Bethuel Finney, Esq., and removed with his clothier’s machinery to Granville, N. Y.

In 1804 Captain J. Colgrove, like a true man of business, not liking to see a vacancy unimproved, erected, for the purpose of wool carding, cloth fulling and dressing, a two-story building-now standing, on the east bank of the Hoosac river, the first dwelling north of Hodges’ grist mill. He procured new machinery, and a large share of Wing’s custom flowed to the establishment. About half of each season, from May to November, was devoted to carding "rolls," for the active, strong-armed housewives to spin, while in the remainder or winter months of the year, the cloth dressing was fully performed. The business was carried on by Captain Colgrove for fifteen years at this mill. He was subjected to the disadvantage of no previous knowledge of the business. He also had an untiring, close-calculating competitor in David Estes.





Edited and adapted from the original by Laurel O’Donnell
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