The Hathaway Manufacturing Company was a producer of cotton textiles founded in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1888 by Horatio Hathaway, a China trader and whaler in the Pacific.
The Hathaway Manufacturing Company was a producer of cotton textiles founded in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1888 by Horatio Hathaway, a China trader and whaler in the Pacific.
By 1917, the Hathaway Mills had grown to contain 108,000 ring and mule spindles and 3,400 looms [1] for the production of fine cotton goods, for which the humid seaside location of New Bedford was well suited.
In 1955, Hathaway merged with Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates of Adams, Massachusetts, and became known as Berkshire Hathaway.
By the 1960s, Berkshire Hathaway had declined to seven plants and 6,000 employees, but still annually produced one quarter of a billion yards of material that sold for more than $60 million. The assets, and a sizable amount of cash on the balance sheet, caught the eye of Warren Buffett, an up-and-coming but little-known investor from Omaha, Nebraska.
Through his Buffett Partnership Limited investment firm Buffett started buying stock in Berkshire at $7.60 a share. He eventually paid an average of $14.86 a share, or a total of $14 million, and took control of the company on May 10, 1965. [2]
In 1985, the last textile operations were shut down. A portion of the mills, including the former office building, were torn down on January 14, 2014. [3]
Warren Edward Buffett is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. As a result of his immense investment success, Buffett is one of the best-known fundamental investors in the world. As of June 2023, he possessed a net worth of $117 billion making him the fifth-richest person in the world.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its main business and source of capital is insurance, from which it invests the float in a broad portfolio of subsidiaries, equity positions and other securities. The company has been overseen since 1965 by its chairman and CEO Warren Buffett and vice chairman Charlie Munger, who are known for their advocacy of value investing principles. Under their direction, the company's book value has grown at an average rate of 20%, compared to about 10% from the S&P 500 index with dividends included over the same period, while employing large amounts of capital and minimal debt.
Fruit of the Loom is an American company that manufactures clothing, particularly casual wear and underwear. The company's world headquarters is in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Since 2002, it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.
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Wamsutta Mills is a former textile manufacturing company and current brand for bedding and other household products. Founded by Thomas Bennett, Jr. on the banks of the Acushnet River in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1846 and opened in 1848, Wamsutta Mills was named after Wamsutta, the son of a Native American chief who negotiated an early alliance with the English settlers of the Plymouth Colony. It was the first of many textile mills in New Bedford, and gradually led to cotton textile manufacturing overtaking whaling as the town's principal industry by the 1870s.
The Wamsutta Club is a private social club in New Bedford, Massachusetts, founded in 1866. It was a club for the affluent members of New Bedford's community, which at the time was supported by the flagging whaling industry as well as the up-and-coming textiles.
Oliver Chace was an American 18th and 19th-century businessman. He was the founder of several New England textile manufacturing companies in the early 19th century, including the Valley Falls Company, the original antecedent of Berkshire Hathaway, which as of 2019 is one of the largest and most valuable companies in the world.
Horatio Hathaway was a New England industrialist, politician, and philanthropist and namesake of Berkshire Hathaway.
Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates was an American textile company, founded in 1889 as Berkshire Cotton Manufacturing Company in Adams, Massachusetts in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
The American Printing Company, located in Fall River, Massachusetts grew to become the largest producer of printed cotton cloth in the United States by the early 20th Century. The company grew as an offshoot of the Fall River Iron Works, established in 1821 by Colonel Richard Borden and Major Bradford Durfee. The American Print Works was established in 1835 by Holder Borden. It employed several thousand workers at its peak during World War I.
The Valley Falls Company was founded in 1839 by Oliver Chace, in Valley Falls, Rhode Island, a historic mill village on both sides of the Blackstone River, within the modern-day town of Cumberland and city of Central Falls, Rhode Island. The Valley Falls Company is the original antecedent of Berkshire Hathaway, currently one of the world's largest and most successful companies.
King Philip Mills is an historic cotton mill complex located at 372 Kilburn Street in Fall River, Massachusetts. Developed between 1871 and 1892, it was historically one of the city's largest mills, and its building inventory is still largely complete. The complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
The Berkshire Mill No. 1 is a historic mill complex on Hoosac Street in the center of Adams, Massachusetts. Built in 1895 by the locally prominent Plunkett family, it is an important surviving reminder of the town's industrial textile past. Now converted into mixed residential and commercial use, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
The New Bedford Institute of Technology was a public college located in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded in 1899 as the New Bedford Textile School.
Malcolm Greene Chace was an American financier and textile industrialist who was instrumental in bringing electric power to New England. He was a pioneer of the sport of ice hockey in the United States, and was Yale University's first hockey captain. He was also an amateur tennis player whose highest ranking was U.S. No. 3 in 1895.
Seabury Stanton was an industrialist from New Bedford, Massachusetts who ran Berkshire Hathaway prior to its takeover by Warren Buffett in 1964.
Edward Gould Chase (1882–1935) was an American businessman and an entrepreneur in textile manufacturing. Chase led the organization of the Fort Dummer Mills in Brattleboro, Vermont, a cotton mill, and he served as the founding manager. He also served as a vice president and the treasurer of Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates, a predecessor of Berkshire Hathaway.
Gregory Edward Abel is a Canadian businessman, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and vice-chairman of non-insurance operations of Berkshire Hathaway since January 2018.