Woolen Mills dam

Relatively little cloth was actually woven at the mill. Gradually, improved roads and canals gave rise to better modes of transportation and this in turn enabled an industrious mill owner here and there to broaden his market. Further, there was a growing market for the crude cloth which such mills could weave.

As the volume and variety of production in cotton and wool manufacturing increased, there was a concurrent change in the typical unit of ownership of textile mills. Prior to 1815, individuals, families, or small partnerships characterized the proprietorship of the average mill. While this continued for many years after that date, the trend was toward the formation of joint-stock companies with their increased capitalization, shared risks, and more detailed management. By 1830, the manufacture of cotton and woolen cloth on a factory basis, though still crude in many respects, had replaced the family spinning wheel and loom as the primary source of cloth production in the United States. Eventually, a further tendency would appear: the concentration of large-scale firms in sections where proximity to sources of raw material, marketing facilities, and trained employees offered economic advantages.-- Harry Poindexter