Taunton is a city and county seat of Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. Taunton is situated on the Taunton River, which winds its way through the city on its way to Mount Hope Bay, 10 miles (16 km) to the south. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 59,408. Shaunna O'Connell is the mayor of Taunton.
William Mason was a master mechanical engineer and builder of textile machinery and railroad steam locomotives. He founded Mason Machine Works of Taunton, Massachusetts. His company was a significant supplier of locomotives and rifles for the Union Army during the American Civil War. The company also later produced printing presses.
The Boston Manufacturing Company was a business that operated one of the first factories in America. It was organized in 1813 by Francis Cabot Lowell, a wealthy Boston merchant, in partnership with a group of investors later known as The Boston Associates, for the manufacture of cotton textiles. It built the first integrated spinning and weaving factory in the world at Waltham, Massachusetts, using water power. They used plans for a power loom that he smuggled out of England as well as trade secrets from the earlier horse-powered Beverly Cotton Manufactory, of Beverly, Massachusetts, of 1788. This was the largest factory in the U.S., with a workforce of about 300. It was a very efficient, highly profitable mill that, with the aid of the Tariff of 1816, competed effectively with British textiles at a time when many smaller operations were being forced out of business. While the Rhode Island System that followed was famously employed by Samuel Slater, the Boston Associates improved upon it with the "Waltham System". The idea was successfully copied at Lowell, Massachusetts, and elsewhere in New England. Many rural towns now had their own textile mills.
Pocasset Manufacturing Company was a cotton textile mill located in Fall River, Massachusetts. It was located just west of Main Street across the second falls of the Quequechan River. It was organized on August 15, 1821, with $100,000 in capital. The mill began operation in 1822, with Samuel Rodman of New Bedford as the principal owner. Oliver Chace, served as the mill's agent until 1837. Nathaniel Briggs Borden was named clerk and treasurer.
William Croad Lovering was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.
The Crompton Mill Historic District is a historic district encompassing a mill complex at 20 Remington Street, 53 and 65 Manchester Street in West Warwick, Rhode Island. The mill complex consists of a collection of mainly brick buildings, bounded by the Pawtuxet River and Pulaski, Remington, and Manchester Streets in the village of Crompton. The mill complex formerly extended across the river, but the complex on the west bank was destroyed by fire in 1992. The oldest elements of the complex are the dam site and some of the raceways that provided water power to the mills. The present dam was built in 1908, replacing an 1882 structure. The raceways were built in 1807, around the time of the first mill buildings. The stone Mill No. 1, built 1807, is believed to be the oldest stone mill building in the state. Most of the complex's buildings were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by the Providence Manufacturing Company and its successors. The mill was used for textile processing until 1946, when the Crompton Corporation ended production.
Union Congregational Church is an historic Congregational church at 265 West Brittania Street in Taunton, Massachusetts. The church was built in 1872-73 on land donated by the owner of the Whittenton Mills, and is a nearly unaltered example of Stick/Eastlake style architecture. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
The Mason Machine Works was a machinery manufacturing company located in Taunton, Massachusetts, between 1845 and 1944. The company became famous for an early invention by its creator, William Mason, the self-acting mule, first patented in 1840. The company also later produced locomotives, rifles during the American Civil War, and later printing presses. However, the production of textile machinery would remain the company's core business during the late 19th century, until its decline in the 1920s.
The Border City Mill No. 2 is a historic cotton textile mill at One Weaver Street in Fall River, Massachusetts. Built in 1873, it is the largest surviving element of the once-sprawling Border City Mill complex. It was designed by Josiah Brown, a prominent local designer of mills, and is one of the city's few brick mills. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. It was converted into residences in the 1980s.
The Taunton Green Historic District encompasses the core area of the historic 19th-century commercial downtown business district of Taunton, Massachusetts. It is centered on the town green, laid out in the 1740s, which now serves at the intersection between U.S. Route 44, Massachusetts Route 140, and Route 138. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
The Old Colony Iron Works-Nemasket Mills Complex is a historic industrial site located on Old Colony Avenue in the East Taunton section of Taunton, Massachusetts, United States, adjacent to the Taunton River at the Raynham town line. The site was first occupied by the Old Colony Iron Company, which had originally been established in the 1820s as Horatio Leonard & Company. The western part of the complex was sold to Nemasket Mills in 1889. The eastern part was acquired by the Standard Oil Cloth Company. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
The Cohannet Mill No. 3 is an historic textile mill located at 120 Ingell Street in Taunton, Massachusetts. The mill was built in 1890 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. It is the only remaining mill of the Cohannet Mills company, founded in 1847 for the manufacture of fine cotton yarns.
Thomas Baylies was a Quaker ironmaster first in England, then in Massachusetts.
The Hopewell Mills District is a historic district on Bay Street and Albro Avenue in Taunton, Massachusetts. The site is associated with the Hopewell Mills, one of the earliest textile mills in the city, established in 1818.
The Renfrew Mill No. 2 was a historic mill complex at 217 Columbia Street in Adams, Massachusetts. Most of its buildings were built between 1867 and 1878, and were brick buildings with Italianate styling. They were built by the Renfrew Manufacturing Company, a textile manufacturer, to replace an earlier complex further down Columbia Street that had been demolished. The property was acquired by the Arnold Print Works in 1928. The mill was the town's largest employer for much of the second half of the 19th century.
The Taunton Locomotive Manufacturing Company was one of the earliest firms in the United States established especially for the manufacture of steam locomotives. Located in Taunton, Massachusetts, the company was organized in 1849 and incorporated the following year by William A. Crocker, Willard W. Fairbanks, William R. Lee and their associates. Their first engine, the Rough and Ready was delivered in May 1849.
Mississippi Mills was a cotton and wool textile manufacturing complex that operated in Wesson, Mississippi, during the latter half of the 19th century. By 1892, Mississippi Mills was described as the largest industry of its kind in the South.
The Fall River Manufactory was the first cotton mill to be constructed across the Quequechan River in Fall River, Massachusetts, United States. It was also the first successful textile mill in the area.
The Cocheco Mills comprise a historic mill complex in the heart of Dover, New Hampshire. The mills occupy a bend in the Cochecho River that has been site of cotton textile manufacturing since at least 1823, when the Dover Manufacturing Company supplanted earlier sawmills and gristmills. The present mill buildings were built between the 1880s and the early 20th century, and were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.
