Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V THE BUILDING OF THE MIDDLETOWN FACTORY. AND AN UNPLEASANT EPISODE DIMMEDIATELY upon returning from Washington to Berlin with this contract, Colonel North purchased fifty acres of land located on Mattabesett or West River, with the privilege of flowing, at Staddle Hill, in Middletown, about a mile and a half southwest of Middletown Center. The water power at Berlin was not sufficient to take care of a factory as large as it was now necessary to operate. Here he proceeded to build a large dam, and to erect a three story brick factory, together with several outbuildings, planned along the best lines of the manufacturing buildings of those times. He states in a letter (see p. 122) that this factory with its machinery and tools, represented an investment of one hundred thousand dollars. There were few larger manufacturing investments in those days, either in New England or elsewhere in the country. When the new factory was completed and equipped, Colonel North turned over the Berlin shop to his eldest son Reuben, who had been long associated with him in the business there, and who continued to run it, in close affiliation with the Middletown factory, making forgings for the pistols manufactured in the new factory. Reuben North carried on the Berlin shop as superintendent until 1843, when, his health failing, he retired, and the factory was closed. It was destroyed by a flood in 1857, which swept away the dam on Spruce brook at the same time. Hardly a trace of this primitive factory has been visible for many years, and the stream has shrunken to such meager dimensions that it is difficult for the imagination to realize the large and important business which was so successfully conducted with the aid of its flow, by father and son, ..