Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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ployees either returned to their stocking frames or continued with them, for it has been reported that some were carrying on this trade in their homes while working in the lace factory. Others moved to dif- ferent communities, and for the most part, these either settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania, or in Plymouth, New Hampshire, where groups of lace and stocking weav- ers had established themselves. Nevertheless, there remained in Ipswich four small but skilled man- ufacturers. One of them, Mr. Ben- jamin Fewkes, operated a small shop on High Street near his resi- dence ; incidentally, the Peatfield brothers constructed two stocking frames for Mr. Fewkes which were, I believe, the first of their kind made in this country. At the same time Mr. Warner ran a shop lo- cated on the site of the present Damon Block, and Mr. Samuel Hunt and Mr. Charles Bamford both ran shops in their homes. These shops were all small, of course, and each contained only two stocking frames. Soon these four small industries were supplemented by larger ones. The Peatfield brothers had erected the building now known as Hayes’ Tavern and established an under- wear factory. Not long after this Mr. George Heard undertook a knitting business in a building lo- cated at the lower falls near the County Street Bridge. By this time Dr. Manning had constructed some buildings at Willowdale. Two of these which had been used for saw mills burned; however, the third, a stone building, was converted into a woolen factory. In 1863 a mill was erected on the banks of the river at County Street, and the manufacture of yarn was begun. Joseph Ross, Thomas Dodge, and Henry Ordway were named directors. The yarn business was a great success, and five years later the manufacture of hosiery was un- dertaken. In this manner the mill continued in profitable operation until 1873, the year of the great fire of Boston. A great quantity of finished goods from this factory had been stored in warehouses in Bos- ton, all of which was lost in the fire. This great catastrophe forced the insurance companies into bank- ruptcy, and only a few cents were returned on a dollar. Naturally this loss greatly affected the circum- stances of our hosiery mill, and in 1885, after a few unsuccessful years, the mill was shut down. In the meantime the manufac- ture of cotton cloth had continued in an old stone mill situated on the site of the present Ipswich Mills. This industry had been established in 1828 by Augustine Heard, Jo- seph Farley, and George Heard, and at the time the machinery was installed, a new dam had been con- 27

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this machine was brought to Ips- wich by George Warner and Benja- min Fewkes. This stocking frame was operated in the kitchen of a house located where the South Con- gregational Church now stands. In the meantime machines had been set up, and a small lace fac- tory was in operation in Watertown on the Newton boundary. The suc- cess of this factory aroused the in- terest of Mr. Augustine Heard and others, and the lace industry was in- troduced into Ipswich. The Dr. Philemon Dean house, the present hosiery shop on South Main Street, was purchased by Mr. Heard, and the Boston and Ipswich Lace Com- pany was established. It is under- stood that this factory was in oper- ation in 1824. However, after sev- eral unsuccessful years this indus- try was abandoned. In spite of this failure. Dr. Thom- as Manning, who, it will be remem- bered, was the benevolent donor of the former high school, and others interested in the lace industry founded the New England Lace Company. The Dr. John Manning residence on High Street, where the late Ross house stood, was re- modeled and utilized for a factory. The employees consisted of machin- ists, weavers, warpers, and others ; women and children were employed for embroidering and washing the lace. The same gentlemen who had in- troduced the lace factory now de- cided upon an experiment in silk. Mr. Augustine Heard, who at that time was an important figure in East India shipping and trade, im- ported from China some mulberry moth eggs, which were carefully transported and installed in the lace factory It is said that, to insure warmth, these eggs were carried about the bodies of Chinese sailors during their transportation across the seas. In way of preparation cer- tain rooms were reconstructed to ac- commodate these eggs, and, in ad- dition to this, the south side of the hill running behind the factory was terraced and graded. A great num- ber of mulberry trees were planted on the terraces and their leaves were gathered and fed to the mulberry moths. This experiment probably lasted only a few years and was abandoned when the lace factory failed. Today the graded terraces are still to be seen ; however, there remains only one very crippled mul- berry tree. The trees apparently either died natural deaths or were killed by our inconsistent New Eng- land climate. In the meantime the lace indus- try had had a short-lived success, for the factory shut down in 1832. Because of the unfavorable cli- matic conditions of our own coun- try, the fine thread utilized in mak- ing the lace had been necessarilv imported from England. England, however, attempting to regain the coveted lace industry, in 1832 placed a high export duty on the thread and, on the other hand, al- lowed finished lace goods to be ex- ported free of duty. This bit of business strategy on England’s part quickly put an end to the lace in- dustry in Ipswich, and this failure of the New England Lace Company concluded all attempts made in Ips- wich in this field or in the silk field. The lace industry having been abandoned, many of the former em- 26

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structed. Following the history of this mill, we see that it ran success- fully for forty years, and in 1868 Mr. Amos Lawrence purchased the property. Under its new head the industry was renamed the Ipswich Mills Company, and the manufac- ture of hosiery was introduced. Thus we see that the history of the textile industries in our town has been a long and interesting one. The picturesque silk and lace indus- tries lasted only a few years, and no attempts were ever made after- ward to reorganize them. On the other hand, the equally historic and interesting hosiery business had developed within half a century from sniall unimportant shops into an influential and vastly organized industry. At one time the huge Ipswich Mills Company was one of the largest of the seamless hosiery mills in the country ; however, with the introduction of full fashioned hosiery seamless hosiery became obsolete and the great company failed in 1928. Since then the Hay- ward Hosiery Company has carried on the tradition of this industry, and we hope that hosiery will con- tinue to give employment to our townspeople in the future. CLASS DAY PARTS. History of the Class of 1937 By Charles Rhodes O N the ninth day of September, of the year nineteen hundred and thirty-three, a timid but deter- mined group of students could be seen ascending the stairs to the “at- tic” of old Manning High. It was the class of “37.” School records reveal that our class, numbering one hundred and fifteen members, was the largest ever to enter the doors of the Man- ning building. Although the system of changing- rooms for each period was at first a bit confusing and straying into a senior English class instead of a freshman algebra class a trifle em- barrassing, we soon became accus- tomed to our new surroundings and settled down to a quiet, uneventful freshman year. Our officers for the year were Marcel Savoy, president; Robert Bamford, vice-president; Mary Laite, secretary; and Alex- ander Robertson, treasurer. Upon returning to school after a short but enjoyable summer vaca- tion, we were again confronted with the annual election of class officers. They were chosen as follows: John Denningham, president ; Albert Langmaid, vice-president; Priscilla Bailey, secretary; and Howard Cowles, treasurer. Not unlike our freshman year, our sophomore year was character- ized by obscurity and inactivity, al- though we did present an assembly play entitled “Grandma Pulls the Strings,” starring Mabel Chambers as Grandma and Helen Perry as Julia, a shy young lass. This was when Mabel Chambers first gave 28