Catalogue of Looms, Manufactured At The ... - becomingamerica

To Wool/ell and C OIIOll Alanu/aclurers.
broad loom~; 50 tlut the whole of the weaving_power of the mills W;1.5 in tlut direction.
The result W;l.5, that, during the third year after. this company declared ;\
dividend of thi rty-three per cent. T his piece of cloth sent )'ou W;1.5 produced in
the following m.lllner : the 100m, being only twenty.six .lIld a half or twenty-seven
inches wide, was shrunk by fulling to twenty inches and a half, being very nea rly in
the same proportion as the cassimeres, as they were woven on looms thirty.six or
thi rty.seven inches wide, and shrunk to twent y-seven or twenty-eight inches. The
Crompton Looms have been 50 wonderfully improved by the experience, skill, and
ingenuity of the Ilresent owners, that the firlll looms would now hard ly be recognized ;
but the genn was there.
Respectfully yours,
JAMES COOK.
The success of the Middlesex Mills in producing figu red woollens
attracted the attention of manufacturers j and in 184 1 other mills adopted
fancy looms made by Phelps and Bickford of \Vorcester, Mass., under a
license from Crompton. Though the looms were now fairly in troduced,
the low tariff which held from 1836 to 1850 was a great hinderance to
the increase of manufactures: consequently the whole amount received
during the fourteen-years' term of the patent on the loom was only fourteen
thousand dollars. In 1849 William Crompton became mentally in
capacitated fo r business; and his son George, now nearly of age, obtained
an extension of his father's patent, and proceeded, with a partner, to
manufacture the loom. Furbush and Crompton, the new firm, made nar·
row looms from 1851 to 1857, when they brought out the fasf-opcrating
broad fancy 100m with improvements in box-motion. Broad looms up to
this period operated nt nbout forty-five picks. The new (18S7) broad
looms, with twenty·four harnesses and three boxes at each end, reached
the speed of eighty-five picks per minute. This was a great stride in production:
no advance has been so great since then. T he narrow fancy cassimere
loom, with three boxes at each end, up to this t ime had not obtained
a speed of eighty.five picks per minute; but, with important improvements
in the reverse motion, the simplification of devices fo r operating the
lathes by means of the ordinary cranks, the use of the ordinary narrow
shuttle, and the reduction of the size of the shed, made a fast, economical
broad loom of eighty-five picks a possibility. One weaver could attend
one broad loom as readily 3! one narrow: therefore broads at once came
into favorite use, and the comparative exclusion of narrow looms was fore·
seen. Furbush and Crompton built loom. till 18590 when the partnership
was dissolved. T he patents granted t o and owned by the firm were in
part for improvements in double revene motion of E. W , Brown's invention,
of which they were t he .ole owne rs. Said patents were by mutual