Associate Architectural Historian
Jamestown, New York is an unassuming little city in the heart of Chautauqua County. It is a city you likely never think about unless you're a local. However, if you peel back the layers of time, Jamestown's fascinating history becomes apparent. This small community of less than 50,000 once had one of the most vibrant economies in New York. Surrounded by hardwood forests and conveniently located near major markets in the Ohio River Valley and Pittsburgh, Jamestown developed into a center of furniture manufacturing. This industry sustained Jamestown for much of the 19th century and drew thousands of skilled Swedish woodworkers to the city. However, in 1873 textile manufacturing, specifically the production of worsted goods, took the city by storm, bringing with it a new group of immigrants and making several local residents extremely wealthy.
Textile manufacturing came to Jamestown largely under the influence of one man, William Broadhead. Broadhead was an English immigrant who came to Jamestown in 1843 and operated a locally successful manufacturing company with his father in-law. In 1873 Broadhead took a trip back to England to visit his hometown. In the thirty years since his departure from the Bradford area, the local economy had been transformed by the mechanization of textile production. Previously, textiles had been a cottage industry and garments had been produced by women as a means of providing extra money for their families. The invention and widespread use of mechanical looms changed this and textile companies were organized throughout the area to purchase raw wool and transform it into dressed cloth. These new companies provided employment to hundreds of people and turned out a far greater volume of cloth than the older hand weaving methods.
Broadhead saw this and recognized the economic opportunity of bringing English manufacturing methods to his adoptive hometown. So, while in England Broadhead started to purchase weaving machinery and hired experienced men to operate his proposed factory. Broadhead returned to Jamestown late in 1873 and soon after the Jamestown Worsted Mill opened and started to produce dressed goods. Within two years Broadhead had sold his claim in the Jamestown Worsted Mill and opened his own company, the Broadhead Worsted Mills. This new firm had 500 looms and by the 1880s it was consuming 400,000 pounds of raw wool annually, forcing the company to start sourcing wool from Argentina, New Zealand, and Australia. This wool came to Jamestown by way of the Erie Railroad whose tracks went past the Broadhead mill.
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| The Broadhead Worsted Mills industrial works |
By 1892 William Broadhead's net worth had reached $1,000,000 making him Jamestown's first millionaire; additionally the Jamestown Worsted Mill and the Broadhead Worsted Mill employed close to 2,000 people, making textile manufacturing one of the two most important industries in Jamestown. Owing to the success of the mills Broadhead founded, other textile firms like the Empire Worsted Mills and the Falconer Towel Company organized in the 1880s and 1890s. Like the older mills these new concerns employed a significant population of English immigrants who made up one of the largest immigrant groups in Jamestown by 1900.
The influence of English laborers and factory managers is evident upon a quick perusal of old newspapers from Jamestown. English men organized cricket leagues as well as football associations. Each major worsted mill had its own association football team and there were cup competitions between the associations that culminated with the winning association receiving a silver cup and gold medals for their achievement. In addition to football clubs and cricket teams, the English organized fraternal organizations such as Lodge 107 of the Sons of St. George.
Worsted milling remained a key component of Jamestown's economy up until around 1950. By that time competition from non-unionized southern mills and a fall in the demand for worsted garments (which were typically high end suits and other items of formal wear) led to the shuttering of many of Jamestown's worsted mills. Equally tragic, many of these large industrial complexes were demolished. Only the Empire Worsted Mills' works remain intact, the last vestiges of Jamestown's once mighty textile manufacturing sector.
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| Painting of the Empire Worsted Mill |
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| Facade of the Empire Worsted Mill |
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