Frye Village Stories: Smith, Dove & Company (part 2)
A Shawsheen Village Story
Before Shawsheen Village Frye Village Stories: Smith, Dove & Company
In 1824, John Smith and his original partners Joseph Faulkner and Warren Richardson constructed their first Andover mill along the Shawsheen River in Frye Village. The mill manufactured machinery used to produce cotton.
ACHC #1989.502.3, looking east on Haverhill Street
ACHC #1950.069.1, Smith & Dove mills, Frye Village, from the north looking south
After the deaths of both John Smith's partners, John with his brother Peter Smith and friend John Dove formed a new company Smith, Dove & Company. They switched over to flax production and linen threads in 1833. It was the first such mill in America.
In 1835, with the new machinery installed, Smith, Dove & Company began the first manufacture of flax products by machinery in America. These products included flax yarns for carpet weaving, sail twines, and shoe threads.
In 1843, the company expanded to become the Smith and Dove Manufacturing Co., purchasing the Abbott Mill in Abbott Village, adding water power and building new buildings, in the area now called Dundee Park.
Andover Advertiser, September 1854
Andover Advertiser, February 1856.
Smith and Dove recruited employees and skilled labor from their home town of Brechin, Scotland. Most of the homes around Dundee Park were once housing for the hundreds of people employed by Smith and Dove.
ACHC #1989.868.1, Smith & Dove mill
Working conditions in textile mills
The workday in textile mills started at 5:00 am and ended at 7:00 pm. Mill workers worked 12 hours a day, Monday through Saturday, and averaged 73 hours a week. Mills were crowded, noisy, hot, and filled with dust. Economic downturns in 1830 and 1837 led to wage reductions and rent increases in company housing, sparking protests against working conditions and wage reductions.
Not far away in Lowell, Massachusetts, workers went out on strike in 1834 and 1836. Lowell textile workers petitioned the Massachusetts Legislature, unsuccessfully, for a ten-hour workday. A 30-minute reduction of the workday in 1847 was a small victory. Workers’ petitions to reduce the workday continued.
In 1853, Lowell mills reduced the workday to eleven hours.
Mills in towns around Lowell, including Andover, quickly followed suit. These articles appeared in the Andover Advertiser in 1853.
Andover Advertiser, July 1853
Andover Advertiser, October 1853
Before Shawsheen Village
There's a lot more Smith & Dove in Frye Village to come! You can jump ahead in the story and read more in Sarah Loring Bailey's 1880 book Historical Sketches of Andover. You can also learn more about Shawsheen Village on our website.
Next Frye Village story: Life in Frye Village and Smith & Dove