Montgomery Worsted Mills

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Montgomery Worsted Mills
Montgomery Worsted Mills.jpg
The mills and its dam from across the Wallkill River
Location 23 Factory Street,
Montgomery, New York
Nearest city Newburgh
Coordinates 41°31′50″N74°13′36″W / 41.53056°N 74.22667°W / 41.53056; -74.22667 Coordinates: 41°31′50″N74°13′36″W / 41.53056°N 74.22667°W / 41.53056; -74.22667
Built 1813, rebuilt 1892
NRHP reference # 80002738
Added to NRHP November 21, 1980

The Montgomery Worsted Mills, known today as Montgomery Mills, is along the Wallkill River at the end of Factory Street in the Orange County village of Montgomery, New York. It was one of the earliest efforts to harness the river for industrial purposes.

Wallkill River Tributary of Rondout Creek in New York and New Jersey

The Wallkill River, a tributary of the Hudson, drains Lake Mohawk in Sparta, New Jersey, flowing from there generally northeasterly 88.3 miles (142.1 km) to Rondout Creek in New York, just downstream of Sturgeon Pool, near Rosendale, with the combined flows reaching the Hudson at Kingston.

Orange County, New York County in the United States

Orange County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 372,813. The county seat is Goshen. This county was first created in 1683 and reorganized with its present boundaries in 1798.

Montgomery (village), New York Village in New York, United States

Montgomery is a village located in Orange County, New York, United States, 60 (97 km) miles northwest of New York City, and 90 miles (140 km) southwest of Albany. The population was 3,814 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area. The village is named after General Richard Montgomery, an officer of the American Revolution.

Contents

Founders Arthur Patchett and William Crabtree became prosperous and upstanding citizens who left their mark on the community they lived in. Many of the homes on the nearby stretch of Factory Street were built by them for their family, and their descendants still live in the Montgomery area. The mills are still in operation too, but are no longer property of the family or used to mill textiles. While they sell yarn, today the mill is primarily an electric power generation station. A deal is in the works to make it a City Winery.

Yarn long continuous length of interlocked fibers

Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery, or ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or other lubricants to withstand the stresses involved in sewing. Embroidery threads are yarns specifically designed for needlework.

Electric power the rate per unit of time at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit

Electric power is the rate, per unit time, at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second.

City Winery winery and music venue in New York City

City Winery is a winery, restaurant, music venue and private event location in Hudson Square, New York City. Other locations include Atlanta, Chicago, Nashville, Boston, and Washington D.C.. Satellite locations are located in Chicago and New York City. A location in Montgomery, New York, at former textile mill, the first one outside a major city, is also planned for 2018.

Site

The mills today consist of a main brick building, running north-south along the river. An east-west wing built partly over the adjacent dam and its flume is three stories high and houses the Hydroelectric turbines. Another east-west wing holds the main office and store. A second brick building slightly uphill is today leased out to an architectural moldings business. One barn, the second one built, is slightly downriver in some adjacent woods.

Brick Block or a single unit of a ceramic material used in masonry construction

A brick is building material used to make walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Traditionally, the term brick referred to a unit composed of clay, but it is now used to denote any rectangular units laid in mortar. A brick can be composed of clay-bearing soil, sand, and lime, or concrete materials. Bricks are produced in numerous classes, types, materials, and sizes which vary with region and time period, and are produced in bulk quantities. Two basic categories of bricks are fired and non-fired bricks.

Dam A barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface or underground streams

A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, aquaculture, and navigability. Hydropower is often used in conjunction with dams to generate electricity. A dam can also be used to collect water or for storage of water which can be evenly distributed between locations. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. The earliest known dam is the Jawa Dam in Jordan, dating to 3,000 BC.

Flume human-made channel for water

A flume is a human-made channel for water in the form of an open declined gravity chute whose walls are raised above the surrounding terrain, in contrast to a trench or ditch. Flumes are not to be confused with aqueducts, which are built to transport water, rather than transporting materials using flowing water as a flume does. Flumes route water from a diversion dam or weir to a desired materiel collection location.

Factory Street becomes a gravel loop at the mill. Historically there were two large tenements for mill employees at the uphill edge of the property, but they were demolished several decades ago.

Gravel mix of crumbled stone (grain size range = 2-63 mm according to ISO 14688)

Gravel is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel is classified by particle size range and includes size classes from granule- to boulder-sized fragments. In the Udden-Wentworth scale gravel is categorized into granular gravel and pebble gravel. ISO 14688 grades gravels as fine, medium, and coarse with ranges 2 mm to 6.3 mm to 20 mm to 63 mm. One cubic metre of gravel typically weighs about 1,800 kg.

Tenement multi-occupancy building

A tenement is a multi-occupancy building of any sort. In Scotland it refers to flats divided horizontally in an established building type, including desirable properties in affluent ares, but in other countries the term often refers to a run-down apartment building or slum building.

Demolition tearing-down of buildings and other structures

Demolition, or razing, is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other man-made structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a building apart while carefully preserving valuable elements for reuse purposes.

History

The river had been dammed at the mill location since at least the 18th century, and a grist mill had long existed opposite the mill site on the west bank of the river when Johannes Miller began seeking investors for what was to be at first a cotton mill in 1813. [1] It would be one of the earliest attempts to harness the Wallkill for industry. At that time wool came straight from locally farmed sheep and was completely processed at the mill. [2]

Grist is grain that has been separated from its chaff in preparation for grinding. It can also mean grain that has been ground at a gristmill. Its etymology derives from the verb grind.

An investor is a person that allocates capital with the expectation of a future financial return. Types of investments include: equity, debt securities, real estate, currency, commodity, token, derivatives such as put and call options, futures, forwards, etc. This definition makes no distinction between the investors in the primary and secondary markets. That is, someone who provides a business with capital and someone who buys a stock are both investors. An investor who owns a stock is a shareholder.

Cotton mill factory housing powered spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton

A cotton mill is a building housing spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system.

Spinning room still in use at the mill Montgomery Mills spinning room.jpg
Spinning room still in use at the mill

The cotton mill failed before it could even begin production and nothing happened with the site until about 1870, when an English immigrant, Edmund Ackroyd, bought the property and added a three-story addition. Ten years later, William Crabtree and Arthur Patchett bought the mills, focusing its process on spinning at the expense of weaving. [3] In 1897, they had to establish a branch mill on South Colden Street in Newburgh due to labor shortages in Montgomery. [4]

England Country in north-west Europe, part of the United Kingdom

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north-northwest. The Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

On Election Day, November 3, 1891, the factory was burned completely to the ground [5] and the current, 50,000-square foot (4,500 m²) structure built in its place. [2] It would be in operation by the next summer. Another fire would destroy the Newburgh branch on May 23, 1900. [4]

Patchett died in late 1901, and Crabtree took on his five sons as replacement partners the following year., [4] then died himself on a return trip to England the year after that. [6] The sons all built houses, some of which stand, on the hillside above the mill. They would later be used to house employees.

In 1906 they expanded the mill further, extending the south wing to add drawing and spinning space. The office that had been there was moved to a new north wing, which also housed sorting, scouring and carding rooms. [4] Eight years later, the dam was rebuilt so it crossed the river in a straight line rather than at an angle. After World War I, the mill would see serious expansion. [5] Sometime before the mid-1920s, the Wallkill Valley Railroad added a route that crossed (and still does) Factory Street near the mill, greatly shortening the distance required to put finished yarns on trains. Automobiles, too, began replacing the horse-drawn carts that had been carrying the finished product.

A new packing and sorting wing was built in 1922 and a new factory acquired on South William Street in Newburgh. [7] However, these investments could not help the partnership survive the Great Depression, and the mills would be sold to the Steinberger family of New York. It has remained in their hands, and in business in some way, ever since.

The hydroelectric turbines, today the primary source of income for the mills Montgomery Mills hydro turbines.jpg
The hydroelectric turbines, today the primary source of income for the mills

In the late 1940s, the former houses that had been home to the workers were torn down as the expense was no longer justified. [7] The Steinbergers gradually switched over to power generation, selling what is today 250 kilowatts of hydroelectric power to CH Energy Group. They also lease out some of the available space and offer shipping services as well. A retail store in the mill is open to the public daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., selling yarns spun for knitting and weaving.

The Steinbergers reached an agreement to sell the mill to Michael Dorf in 2018. If he is able to complete the deal and get approval from the village, he plans to convert the building into a location for his City Winery chain, possibly with some added hotel space. It would be the only location where wine would be produced on site, capable of producing 30–40,000 cases a year, using power generated by the river and solar cells to be placed on the roof. [8]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Harris, Eleanor Crabtree; November 17, 1973; "The Crabtree Worsted Mill", expansion of talk given to the Historical Society of Walden and the Wallkill Valley at the Walden House, currently available at the mill itself, 1.
  2. 1 2 DePalma, Jessica; June 15, 2003; Hanging on by a Thread: Mill Owners Struggle to Survive Declining Textile Industry; Times-Herald Record ; retrieved December 6, 2006.
  3. ↑ Harris, op. cit., 4.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Harris, op. cit., 7.
  5. 1 2 Harris, op.cit., 5.
  6. ↑ Harris, op. cit. 8.
  7. 1 2 Harris, op. cit., 9.
  8. ↑ Axelrod, Daniel (August 15, 2018). "$5M winery complex planned for Montgomery". Times-Herald Record . Retrieved August 16, 2018.
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