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Downtown 1958

Downtown 1958

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Woolen Mills


from the Semi-centennial edition of the Menasha Press: historical, biographical, descriptive. commemorative of Wisconsin's 50th year of statehood, June 1898: 

"This institution was originally established by Daniel Priest in 1857. In 1865 the older portion of the present woolen mill, was built, and one year later the firm of Chapman & Hewitt, consisting of the late John Chapman and W. P. Hewitt, the present proprietor of the mills, took possession. This partnership existed for fifteen years, Mr. Chapman retiring in 1882, and the firm name changing to W. P. Hewitt & Co., which it remains to this day. The product of these widely-known mills consists of skirtings, shirtings, ladies' dress goods, sackings and frockings, and goes to almost every state in the union except in the extreme South, where woolen goods are an unknown quantity. The Menasha flannels have a country-wide reputation, and in hundreds of cities and towns throughout the North people call for them and will have none other. The capacity of the mills is about 1,200 yards per day, and a force of about sixty operatives, two-thirds of whom are girls-is given employment. The superintendent of the mills is Thomas H. Robinson, than whom no man in the Northwest more thoroughly understands the thousand and one details of cloth making. Win. Taylor is the foreman of the spinning room; Daniel Fallain, of the weaving room; John Murtaugh of the carding room, and Joseph Guyett is boss finisher. The mill is equipped with eighteen looms-thirteen broad and fiber narrow, and all of the latest improved make; and its carding machines and spinning jacks are the best that can be bought at any market."
 
The mill was located at 400 S. Tayco and closed by the 1920s.

1 comment:

  1. In June of 1857, Boughton and Perkins established the Fox River Woolen Mill and sold it to G. A. Gillette & Co. in October of 1858. Neenah Menasha Conservator June 11, 1857 and June 3, 1858, and Weekly Manufacturer October 21, 1858.

    Daniel Priest was the owner of mill by at least 1861 when he donated army blankets to the soldiers of Company C, 10th Wisconsin Infantry, then known as the Menasha Guards. Weekly Manufacturer September 5, 1861.

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