The history of the town of Dorchester, Massachusetts, By a committee of the Dorchester antiquarian and historical society ...

HISTORY OF DORCHESTER. 633
towns during the stagnation of business in the war
of 1812. The cotton, at that time, was delivered at
the mill to such as chose to take it home and
cleanse it from its seeds and other foreign substance.
It was then returned, and carded and spun. The
yarn was then taken around in the neighboring
towns, and wove by hand in families-about eight
cents a yard being paid for the weaving.
The water-power not being sufficient to do the
work required by an increasing business, the company bought the privilege of John Capen, March
4th, 1812, about three-quarters of a mile below their
first dam. There, in 1815, they erected another
mill, and dug a canal or trench to serve as a raceway for the mill above. The wheels of the last mill
were set so low, that, in times of a freshet, and in a
dry season, when the flush-boards were upon Baker,
Vose and Gardner's dam, the back water was a serious'hindrance to the mill, and led to protracted lawsuits between the parties-which commenced in
1822, and terminated with an indenture, defining
the rights of the parties, made in 1826. Mr. Boies
resigned as agent, and Enoch Baldwin was appointed in his place, January, 1822.
It was found by experience that the water-power
of the privileges could be much more advantageously used if united in one fall; therefore the corporation, in 1826, raised their lower dam so as to
flow out the upper dam, and abandoned the mill
built in 1811, putting up a large mill near the small
one then standing at the lower dam. The building
abandoned stood useless for about three years, when