Montgomery Worsted Mills
The Montgomery Worsted Mills , now more briefly referred to as the Montgomery Mills , are watermills on the Wallkill River . You are at the end of Factory Street in the Village of Montgomery in Orange County , New York . The construction of the mills was one of the first attempts in the region to make the river water usable for industrial purposes.
The founders Arthur Patchett and William Crabtree became wealthy from the operation of the mill and made outstanding citizens of the locality in which they lived. They built many of the houses on the adjacent stretch of road for family members, and their descendants still live in the Montgomery area today. The mills are still in operation, although they are no longer owned by these families. Today they are primarily used to generate electrical energy through hydropower , but also to produce worsted yarn.
description
Today the mill complex consists of a brick- built main building that runs north-south along the river bank. A side wing built at right angles to it, which partly extends over the weir and the Mühlbach, has three floors and houses the turbines . Another side wing, which also runs from east to west, houses offices and storage rooms. A second brick building, which is slightly elevated on the hill, is rented to a commercial enterprise. A stable, chronologically the second oldest building on the property, is located a little downstream in the adjacent forest.
Factory Street becomes a gravel road at the mill that leads to the buildings of the complex. It used to include two accommodations for mill employees on the uphill edge of the property; they were demolished in the late 1940s.
history
The river has been dammed at the level of the mill since at least the 18th century. There was a wheat mill on the bank opposite the mill when Johannes Miller was looking for investors in 1813 for his project, initially the construction of a spinning mill. It was one of the first attempts to use the river's water industrially. At that time, the wool was delivered directly from local sheep farmers and processed in the mill. The venture failed before the mill could start operating, and there were no major changes to the site until about 1870. Then a British immigrant bought the property: Edmund Ackroyd added a three-story extension. Ten years later, William Crabtree and Arthur Patchett bought the mill facility and focused at the expense of weaving on the worsted spinning . They built a branch on South Colden Street in Newburgh in 1897 because of a shortage of workers in Montgomery.
On November 3rd, election day in 1891, the factory burned to the ground. As a result, the current 4,500 m² building was erected instead. It started operating in 1892. The Newburgh branch was also destroyed by fire on May 23, 1900.
Patchett died in late 1901 and Crabtree took his five sons into the company as partners in 1902. He died a year later on a trip to England. The sons each built a house on the slope above the mill. These buildings, which were later used by mill employees, are only partially standing.
The Crabtree sons expanded the mill in 1906 by widening the south wing to accommodate looms . The previously existing offices were relocated to the new north wing, where there were also rooms for sorting, scrubbing and carding . Eight years later, the weir was rebuilt so that it crossed the river in a straight line, rather than angled it as before. After the First World War , the facility was expanded again. Before the mid-1920s, the Wallkill Valley Railroad built a railroad line that crosses Factory Street near the mill, speeding up the route for the goods produced. Trucks also replaced horse-drawn carts .
In 1922 the mill was again extensively redesigned. A new wing of the building was created for packing and sorting the goods; Newburgh also moved into a new factory on South William Street. However, these investments could not guarantee that the company would survive the global economic crisis . It was sold to the Steinberger family of New York City , who have owned it ever since. In the late 1940s, the houses that had previously housed the mill workers were demolished because they were no longer needed and their maintenance became too expensive. The owners switched to the generation of electricity and today sell an output of 250 kilowatts to the CH Energy Group ("Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation" and "Central Hudson Enterprises Corporation") . Worsted yarn is still sold. Some of the available rooms are rented.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jessica DePalma: Hanging on by a Thread: Mill Owners Struggle to Survive Declining Textile Industry ( English ) Times-Herald Record . June 15, 2003. Retrieved March 15, 2009.
Web links
Coordinates: 41 ° 31 '50 " N , 74 ° 13' 36" W.