Timothy Dwight | Visit to Worcester (Massachusetts) Mills, 1821
American industry began in earnest in New England, and mills there garnered great attention from interested observers at home and abroad. In 1821 Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale College, published his impression of various New England towns in his Travels, including the bustling commercial center of Worcester, Massachusetts. After describing the town and the great variety of mills located along the Blackstone River, he notes the ubiquity of such mills throughout New England.
Few towns in New-England exhibit so uniform an appearance of neatness and taste or contain so great a proportion of good buildings, and so small a proportion of those which are indifferent, as Worcester. There is probably more wealth in it also than in any other, which does not exceed it in dimensions and number of inhabitants. Its trade, considering its inland situation, is believed to be extensive and profitable. . . .
There are in Worcester four grist-mills, four saw-mills, two fulling-mills, and a large paper-mill. The proprietors of the fulling-mills carry on the Clothiers’ business to a great extent; and with skill supposed not to be excelled in the State. Scarlet and blue have for some time been dyed here in a superiour manner.
On the subject of mills I wish you to observe, once for all, that I shall rarely mention them. There is scarcely a township in New-England which has not a complete set of grist-mills and saw-mills. . . . There is, probably, no country in the world where mill-streams are so numerously and universally dispersed, or grist-mills and saw-mills so universally erected as in New-England. Conveniences of this kind may be said, almost if not quite literally, to be furnished in abundance to every Parish in the Country. To reiterate this fact would be to take very effectual means for wearing out your patience.
Source: Timothy Dwight, Travels; in New-England and New-York (New Haven: Timothy Dwight, 1821), 366–67.
Interpret the Evidence
How does Dwight characterize Worcester? What role do the mills play in his assessment?
Why does Dwight say he is not going to discuss mills elsewhere in his book?
Put It in Context
What does Dwight’s report reveal about the industrial innovations occurring in the northeastern United States in the early nineteenth century?
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