By Muriel Bristol | March 23, 2025
The following description of Milton Mills appeared as a letter from “S” to the Editor of the Dover Enquirer, dated November 23, 1869. One might compare it to the earlier “Vulpes” letter of 1864. (“Vulpes” being Latin for “Fox,” i.e., Milton Mills merchant Asa Fox).
After some brief notice of the various businesses in Milton Mills, the author focused his attention on various aspects of the E. Brierley & Son mill operation.
LETTER FROM MILTON MILLS. Nov. 23, 1869.
Messrs. Editors: Milton Mills is an extreme eastern village of the frontier town of Milton, lying on the Salmon Falls river. Geographically it is a little obscure, being off the main thoroughfares to and from the great markets. It is about four miles east of Union, the terminus of the Great Falls & Conway Railroad. One of the characteristic beauties is that it is so nicely nestled in among the hills which tower above on every side, save that of the approach from Union or the south side, thus rendering it one of nature’s richest endowed in surrounding scenery, while human skill and enterprise conspire to make it one of the most thrifty villages of its size in this section of the State. It has five or six stores, several mechanic shops, one hotel, “Woolen Factory,” “Flannel Print Works,” and an “Embossing and Press Dyeing Establishment,” together with a water power sufficient to drive the machinery of the mills of any village below it on the river.
I shall speak in detail of only one enterprise – “The Milton Manufacturing Company,” “Print Works, & c.,” – and of one man in it, though in point of manufacturing much might be said of other establishments.
Mr. Edward Brierly is owner, agent and superintendent of the mills, shops and dwellings forming a group in the northerly part of the village. His business comprises felt cloth manufacture, press dyeing, flannel coloring, block printing, together with an extensive work in steam embossing of piano covers, skirts and table covers of every desirable hue and figure, as may be seen in his finishing and casing apartment, some of the new patterns rivalling anything of the kind heretofore in the markets. Mr. B. is not only a skilled dyer but a man who has in times past obtained considerable notoriety in this country and in England for valuable discoveries in the art. His courteous bearing to visitors at his business enables one to feel quite at home while there. He very gentlemanly showed us around his premises, where we gleaned the following statistics, by which the reader can get something of an idea of the capacity of the establishment and magnitude of the business.
A new mill, three stories in height, 106 by 30 feet on the ground, just erected and unoccupied, will not come into account here. one mill, 45 by 36 feet, three stories high, comprises a Card Room, where with one suit 400 pounds of wool is daily made into a batting two yards in width and some thirty yards in length – a huge bobbin for the Felting room, where, from one machine, 450 to 500 yards of felting is daily turned off, – no loom, shuttle, warp or filling in the way of thread being employed. Here also is a rag grinding room, where old rags are dissected and the product made to approximate the woolly textures; and here also is a fulling and scouring department; also all the modern improvements in Press Dyeing, a feature of the art yielding a diversity of plaids, stripes and checks. With the labor of two men 1500 yards of the article is turned off in a day. We might speak of plain flannel dyeing, extensively done here, – of machinery for steam drying, blowing dust from shoddy, wool picking, etc., all of which is done in this mill and of interest to those unacquainted with the process by which felt cloth and plaids are made.
In another mill, 132 by 32 feet on the ground, three stories high, the upper room is used for tenter bars, for drying flannels fresh from the vat. One thousand yards may here be suspended at a time. In the same room, and for drying flannels, are large copper cylinders, heated by steam, around which the cloth is carried by machinery. In the room beneath we find apartments for shearing, burling, & c. The lower room is employed from Embossing. It contains nine embossing presses of three and one-fourth tons weight each, and one of more than five tons, all worked by steam, – Too much space would be required to particularize upon the modus operandi of embossing. The amount of felting weekly embossed and entering into piano and table covers, skirts, & c., exceeds 300 yards, bringing into requisition some 63 plates and affording so many different patterns. These plates are beautifully designed and engraved, of a composition of tin and copper, weighing 75 pounds each, and costing $150 each.
Another mill, 55 by 30 feet, on the ground, is devoted to another branch of business, that of Block Printing. Four hundred table and piano covers of plain wool flannel in scarlet, magenta and blue colors, are the average daily work for four hands.
The mills are all heated by steam, employing for the business, together with that of boiling the dye, & c., two steam boilers of sufficient capacity to drive a fifty horse power engine. The machinery is driven by water power.
At the counting room we gleaned the following items: It costs $100,000 per year to run the business, or about $2,000 per week. For the week ending Nov. 22, the amount in goods turned off from the embossing department and shipped to Boston, was $3,078. 
About 35 hands are employed. 400 cords of wood are annually consumed about the premises. Jordan, Marsh & Co., Boston, receive the goods. Sterns of Dover, Carter & Brothers of Great Falls, deal largely in the goods, as also do other dry goods men.
Mr. B. is evidently master of his business, and possess[es] a tact to make every branch pay. The whole community around him appreciate his genius and enterprise. With him at the head and Edward James, his son, as accountant and cashier, they may be warranted success. S (Dover Enquirer, December 9, 1869).
Brierley daughter. Agnes J. Brierley married in Milton, June 7, 1870, Henry H. Townsend, she of Milton Mills and he of Boston, MA. (He was a member of Milton Mills’ Townsend blanket factory family).
MARRIED. In Milton, June 7, by Rev. N.D. Adams, Mr. Henry H. Adams, of Boston, Mass., and Miss Agnes J. Brierly, daughter of Edward Brierly, Esq., of Milton Mills (Dover Enquirer, June 19, 1870).
The E. Brierley & Son mill described above in the 1869 Milton Mills description were destroyed in a fire on Thursday, June 12, 1873.
MILTON MILLS. – The extensive woolen mill of Edward Brierley was destroyed Thursday afternoon last. The fire took in the card-room, under the cards. It had three sets of machinery on felting. The mill, dye-house and printery were wholly consumed, The stock, excepting “stock in process,” was saved. The mills run by water, with steam auxiliary. Loss estimated at $45,000. Insurance, $29,000. (Dover Enquirer, [Thursday,] June 19, 1873).
A destructive fire happened at Milton Mills on Thursday of last week. The extensive woolen mills of Edward Brierly with contents, were all burned. The loss is nearly $100,000. Insured for about $25,000. The fire originated in the attic amongst a lot of rags, by spontaneous combustion (Dover Enquirer, [Saturday,] June 21, 1873).
But the E. Brierley & Son mill began reconstruction in the following month and would restart its operations by October of the following year.
Messrs. Edward Brierly & Son of Milton Mills are putting in the foundations of a first class Felt Mill, which is to take the place of one recently burned. It will be 112 feet long, 5 stories high and basement, with ell 60 by 45 feet, lined with brick and covered with corrugated iron, and will be situated on the Maine side of the river. A citizens meeting was called to see what could be done in helping to rebuild the mill, and a subscription was opened and $1500 pledged toward the $3000 proposed to be raised. The firm courteously declined receiving anything. Having grown up with the place, they are ready to try again (Dover Enquirer, July 25, 1873).
(See also news articles of 1873, regarding the fire, and news articles of 1874, regarding the reconstructed mill).
The long-term financial “Panic of 1873” took hold in America in September 1873.
References:
Wikipedia. (2025, March 15). Panic of 1873. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1873
Milton Observer 