"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.
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.
ReplyDeleteDaniel 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.