Volltext Seite (XML)
GENERAL REPORT OF THE JUDGES OF GROUP IX. 63 started by the Essex Company, Mr. Abbott Lawrence being presi dent and Mr. Young treasurer of the company. It was incorporated in 1853, under its present name, with a capital of $2,000,000, for the purpose of making ladies’ dress goods from wool wholly, from cotton wholly, and from wool and cotton combined; and was pro vided with all the appliances of manufacture, including print- and dye-works. The construction of the works having exceeded the amount of capital paid in, the establishment found itself, in the very first years of its existence, on the brink of failure. This failure was arrested by the munificence of Mr. Abbott Lawrence, who, on his private responsibility, advanced several hundred thousand dollars to meet the emergencies of the mill, thus adding to his title for recogni tion as one of the great founders of the manufactures of New Eng land. A hardly less important work of Mr. Lawrence was securing for the treasurership of the mills, vacated through the declining health of Mr. Young, the services of Mr. J. Wiley Edmands, who had been educated in his house. Mr. Edmands took the treasurership and the responsible management of the mills in June, 1855. For the subse quent two or three years, the establishment, although actually mak ing money, was only sustained by borrowing largely. In 1857 the leading commission houses of New England succumbed under the pressure of the well-known panic of that period. The Pacific Mills were compelled to ask an extension of credit for six months, to which every creditor assented. In 1858 the stockholders were called upon to furnish an additional capital of $500,000, of which all but $75,000 was secured. The stock representing this amount, not secured, was sold at public auction, in 1859, at from $1320 to $1342 per share, the par value being $1000; although, in 1857, two years previously, many shares had been sold at prices ranging from $75 to $200. During the first year of the war, i86i,the mills lost money, the product then being about 11,000,000 yards of dress goods, cotton and woolen. In 1870 the product reached 45,000,000 yards; and, for several years since that date, the annual sales, including the cloths purchased for printing, have reached about 65,000,000 yards. Of this, about sixty per cent, are stuff or worsted goods. Estimating our population at 45,000,000, and that one-third of this population (15,000,000) consists of women and girls, the Pacific Mills, which have all their consump tion at home, supply not less than four yards of dress goods to each person of our population wearing these fabrics. The following statistics of this establishment will give a better idea of the magnitude of its operations: