The Merrimack River: its source and its tributaries. Embracing a history of manufactures, and of the towns along its course; their geography, topography, and products, with a description of the magnificent natural scenery about its upper waters./ By J. W. Meader.

THIE iVEPPllI1IACId RIVEDI;
Parker, Samuel P. Kid(ler, John Stark, Jr., David MecQueston, and
Benjamin Pritchard."
There were several other directors, whose names appear at subsequent meetings; the name of Jotham Gillis being signed as clerk.
In 1813, Frederick G. Stark, Esq. (the late Judge Stark), was
appointed agent of this company, with a salary of one hundred and
eighty dollars per year.
The factory was nearly forty feet square and two stories high,6
and was situated midway between the head and foot of the falls,
directly below the west end of Amoskeag Bridge.
The cotton used in this factory was parcelled out among the
families of the neighborhood to be ginned at four cents per pound,
and the yarn was woven by hand at the various houses where women
were the fortunate possessors of a loom.
"I have examined the accounts, kept in the beautiful round hand
of Judge Stark, for the month of October, 1813, for fifteen days in
succession. During that month, there were manufacetured at Amoskeag, three hundred and fifty-eight skeins per day of cotton yarn.
This was about tlhe average amount; this three hundred and fiftyei,ght skeins at factory price was worth twenty-nine dollars and
twenty-two cents."
In 18o6 the mill was enlarged, and the foundation was put in for
another, which was subsequently built, on the island. These mills
were both destroyed by fire,- that on the island in 1840, - and the
old Amoskeag mill was burned in 1848, and has not been rebuilt.
Operations in the manufacture of cotton at Amoskeag F(alls having
been commenced in 1809, the business continued, though not remunerative, until about 1816, when work was stopped, probably for
want of sufficient encouragement. In 1822, Olney RIobinson purchased the property and resumed operations; but being inclined to
outside speculation rather than to his legitimate business, the
property soon fell into the hands of Larned Pitcher and Samuel
Slater, for liabilities incurred. In 1825, Willard Sayles and Lyman Tiffany, - of the firm of Sayles, Tiffany & Hitchcock (now
Gardner Brewer & Co.),- Dr. Oliver Dean and Ziba Gay, were
admitted to a partnership, and, under the new firm, business at once
revived. From this period dates the continued prosperity and in
* Rev. C. W. Wallace, D. D.
194
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