icon for Home page
icon for Kid's Home page
icon for Digital Collection
icon for Activities
icon for Turns Exhibit
icon for In the Classroom
icon for Chronologies
icon for My Collection

Online Collection
Select a transcription:

PICTURESQUE HAMPSHIRE. 85


ture of palm leaf hats, in Enfield. A gentleman in Boston went to Cuba for his health in 1830. He was absent about three years and while on the island noticed that the men and women wore hats of palm leaf, which grows abundantly there. He said to himself that if the hats could be made there the Yankee could make them and of a superior quality. He brought some palm leaf home, and after his arrival in Boston went to see a friend by the name of Holbrook, a wholesale dry goods merchant there, to interest him. Mr. Holbrook named me as a man who might like to take hold of the work, and the next time I passed by his store he called me in. I remained with the friend (I forget the name) for about two hours, when I was satisfied that a large business might be made out of it. We agreed that when my man came for my goods I would order him to call for a few hundred palm leaf, and I took the simple hat with me to Enfield. After arriving home I set my wits to work to find some girl to make the undertaking. I finally concluded to go to a poor widow woman who lived about two miles from the village, and who had grown-up daughters. They were only too willing to attempt the work of making the hats, and as soon as the palm leaf arrived I took about one hundred leaves to the house, together with a machine which Ambrose Packard made for me at his gunshop, to split the leaf to suitable size. After the girls had finished the first hat they brought it to the store and I found it far superior to the sample, and from that small beginning arose one of the greatest industries of the age."

THE SILK INTEREST.

As already intimated, the silk business is the largest and most important manufacturing interest in the county, and the leading house in this line is the

Belding Brothers & Company.

From the small beginnings of the experiments in silk worm culture at Florence have grown the great silk companies of our time, and towering above them all, in importance, is the great firm of Belding Bros. & Co., with mills at Northampton, Montreal, Can., San Francisco, Rockville, Conn, and Belding, Mich. These mills employ over 1800 hands, distributed as follows: At Northampton, 550; Rockville, 500; Montreal, 400; San Francisco. 250; Belding, 150. The principal product is machine silk, sewing silk, knitting and embroidery silks, but at the Northampton mill one hundred and seventy-five looms are employed in weaving silk fabrics, such as sleeve linings, and all silk coat linings, for tailors' use. Here there are also in operation twenty-five hosiery machines, now making one hundred and seventy-five dozen of silk hose a week. The total product of all the mills during the year 1889 was valued at $5,000,000. Over 2000 pounds of raw silk are consumed in the five mills, and some idea of the value of the raw material item may be inferred from the fact that it costs from four to six dollars a pound.

Our purpose in this review is to speak with special reference to the company's interests in Hampshire county and Northampton, where are manufactured the goods we have already described. Mention of the general enterprise of such an important concern and and illustrations of all their mills are naturally concomitant to such an article, and will be found following. The engraving of the Northampton mill, given herewith, is a very accurate one, made from a wash drawing furnished by Artist Clifton Johnson of Hockanum, and photographed by Kurtz of New York.

This branch of the Beldings' interests, which is under the management of E. F. Crooks and the superintendence of H. C. Hallett, has become the most important of the company's works. The buildings comprise two four-story and one one-story brick structure, all of large dimensions. They are located near the Connecticut river railroad and the New Haven & Northampton road, and are equipped with the best mechanical appliances, including one hundred and seventy-five looms and twenty thousand spindles, the driving

CAPTIONS:
THE BELDING BROS.

M. M. Belding, New York; PRES. AND TREAS.
A. N. Belding, Rockville, CT; SEC. AND ASS'T TREAS.
D. W. Belding, Cincinnati, O. VICE-PRESIDENT.

EDGAR F. CROOKS, Manager of Northampton Mill.

THE BELDINGS' MILL AT NORTHAMPTON.

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.



label levels:

"Picturesque Hampshire" was the first of a series of books published by the Northampton, Massachusetts, firm of Wade, Warner and Company; it was published in 1890. These books were the beginning of a number of other Massachusetts county guides ("Picturesque Hampden," 1892; "Picturesque Berkshire," 1893, for example). All of them featured photographs by Clifton Johnson (1865-1940), who went on to have a rich career as an illustrator, author, and photographer. His works include "The Highways and Byways of the South," "Along English Hedgerows" and children's books like "The Brave Tin Soldier." A number of his photographs have become classics, including some documenting African-American life in the South in the 1890s. The "Picturesque" part of the series' title was intended to invoke one of the most popular books published in the United States in the latter part of the 19th century: William Cullen Bryant's "Picturesque America" (1872, 1874 and later editions).

 

top of page

"Picturesque Hampshire"

publisher   Wade, Warner and Company
creator   Charles Forbes Warner (1851-1933)
date   1890
location   Northampton, Massachusetts
height   13.25"
width   11.0"
process/materials   printed paper, ink
item type   Periodicals/Magazine
accession #   #L02.135


Look Closer icon My Collection icon Document Image icon Detailed info icon


ecard icon Send an e-Postcard of this object



See Also...

"Picturesque Franklin"

"History of Massachusetts Industries Their Inception, Growth and Success" Vol. I

"King's Handbook of the United States"


button for Side by Side Viewingbutton for Glossarybutton for Printing Helpbutton for How to Read Old Documents

 

Home | Online Collection | Things To Do | Turns Exhibit | Classroom | Chronologies | My Collection
About This Site | Site Index | Site Search | Feedback