Otter Creek Industrial Revolution

Otter Creek Industrial Revolution. Roaring Waters, Thundering Mills. , If you were standing here in the 1800s, you would be deafened by the noise and surprised by the activity as burly workers and pious mill girls made their livings on the banks of Otter Creek. Middlebury Falls provided the waterpower to make the new town a busy industrial center. Sawmills and gristmills were erected in the 1780s, to serve settlers eager for boards and bread flour. Then came woolen mills, fulling mills to soften homespun cloth, Vermont's first nail factory, a gun maker and many other enterprises. The falls soon powered David Page's cotton mill (1812), one of the largest and most advanced in the nation. Its 100 looms could make 1600 yards of cloth a day. In the 1820s, John Deere learned the skills that would lead to his famous plow as an apprentice in Benjamin Lawrence's Frog Hollow blacksmith shop. By the 1850s, Nathan Hand's factory was turning out 600 wooden pails a day., ( photo caption ) , Page Mill Building, ca. 1880, David Page razed the original saw and gristmills built by town founder Gamaliel Painter and erected this mighty stone cotton mill in their place. The building rose six floors up from the Creek. The first cloth was produced here during the War of 18 12, costing 50 cents a yard. By the 1850s, mass production had lowered the price to around 8 cents a yard. A fire destroyed the building in September 1854, when new owners rebuilt it as a flourmill." , Collection of the Henry Sheldon Museum of Natural History, Middlebury, Vermont.