Historian - June 2006

In last month’s Trestle Board we read about the Hale House at the Woodman Institute in Dover. The Hale House was so named for John Parker Hale, a US Senator from NH. Senator Hale bought the stately Central Avenue residence in 1840 from its original owner, John Williams.

John Williams was born in Alfred, Maine on May 14, 1780. He moved to Dover in 1807 and opened a dry goods store on Main Street. He was a smart businessman and his store did quite well. A leader in the community, he brought together several local businessmen as investors and founded the Dover Cotton Factory on December 15, 1812.

A factory building, Mill No. 1, was built along the Cochecho River near Kimball’s Falls. Completed in 1815, the Mill manufactured cotton yarn and cloth. John’s nephew, Moses Paul, was the Mill superintendent. The operation was very successful and before long they had more than 300 employees. Young women were hired to operate the looms at $2/week and men were hired as overseers for $3 to $4/week. They worked 14 hours/day, six days/week. Many of the employees lived on-site in boarding houses owned by Mr. Williams. Room and board cost $1.25/week for the women and $1.75/week for the men. In 1819, Mr. Williams bought 93 more acres of land and built more homes, stores, and even a schoolhouse for the folks residing there. The little community was named Williamsville. In that same year, Mr. Williams purchased 131 acres of property at the First Falls of the Cochecho River in downtown Dover.

On July 4, 1821, the cornerstone of the Mill No. 2 was laid in a traditional Masonic ceremony at the First Falls. In 1823, Mill No. 3 was completed. With additional investor support, Mill No. 4 was added in 1825. Mill No. 4 is 6-stories tall and runs parallel to the river for 167’ and then turns in an L-shape and runs another 110’. Mill No. 5 and No. 6 were started that same year and when finished, they completed the Mill quadrangle that we see today.

In the mid 1820s, Mr. Williams secured the water rights to Nippo Lake and Ayers Pond in Barrington and Bow Lake in Strafford. Having done so, he controlled their dams and their flow rate into the Cochecho River, thus controlling the amount of water at the First Falls.

In 1827, Mr. Williams established a large calico printing operation in Mill No. 5. Before long he had 16 machines each producing 70,000 yards of colorful material per week.

Under Mr. Williams’ visionary leadership, Dover, NH was for a time one of the most successful textile manufacturing locations in the world, and by his own industry, he became one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the State. Sadly, by around 1840, he had lost complete control of the enormous business that he had founded and built from the ground up. The big city investors from Boston who thought they knew what they were doing were actually mismanaging the operation. Eventually, with most of the capital siphoned off, the stock value of the company plummeted and John Williams was left bankrupt. In 1842 he moved to Boston where on July 17, 1843, he died penniless.

John Williams was known by many as the “Captain of Industry” and he was known by the Masonic Fraternity as “Brother.” He received the first two degrees of Masonry in Columbian Lodge No. 2 in Nottingham and was raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason in none other than St. John’s Lodge No. 1 on April 1, 1807. As you might expect, Brother John Williams presided in the East as Master – the first Worshipful Master of Strafford Lodge No. 29 in Dover.

So, the next time you pass through downtown Dover be sure to check out the Mill buildings in the center of town. They’re truly something to behold especially now that you know that they built by our Brother John.

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