The Sawyer Woolen Mills is a historic
textile mill
Textile Manufacturing or Textile Engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods ...
complex at 1 Mill Street in
Dover, New Hampshire
Dover is a city in Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 32,741 at the 2020 census, making it the largest city in the New Hampshire Seacoast region and the fifth largest municipality in the state. It is the county se ...
. Built in stages between 1873 and 1939, the mill complex is one of New Hampshire's most intact mill complexes, reflecting multiple architectural styles which were retained by addition to the complex rather than by the demolition of older buildings.
The mills were listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in 1989.
Description
The mill complex occupies on the banks of the
Bellamy River
The Bellamy River, in Strafford County, southeastern New Hampshire, is a tributary of the Piscataqua River about long. It rises in Swains Lake in Barrington, west of Dover. It flows east through the Bellamy Reservoir in Madbury and through ...
, adjacent to the
Spaulding Turnpike
The Spaulding Turnpike is a north-south toll road in eastern New Hampshire. Nearly its entire length is overlapped by New Hampshire Route 16. Its southern terminus is at the Portsmouth Traffic Circle (Interstate 95 / U.S. Route 1 Bypass) in Por ...
south of downtown Dover. It consists of 15 major buildings, two dams, and four bridges. Only three smaller buildings have been destroyed. There are four large mill buildings in which the textile processing took place, lining the banks of the river, two of which are joined by an ell that spans the river. On the east side of the complex are a series of four warehouses. The 1882 office building is one of the finest mill offices in New England of the period, retaining significant interior decorative detail.
[ The designers of most of the mill buildings are unknown, but the office was designed by Charles E. Joy, a local architect.]["Decorative Brickwork". ''Carpentry and Building'' Dec. 1882: 220. New York.]
History
The Sawyer Woolen Mill Company was established in 1824, and are believed to be the third woolen mill in the state. By 1883 it was the largest manufacturer of woolens in the state, a position it held until it was eclipsed by the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company
The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company was a textile manufacturer which founded Manchester, New Hampshire, United States. From modest beginnings it grew throughout the 19th century into the largest cotton textile plant in the world.
At its peak, Amos ...
of Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
around 1900. The company was founded by Alfred I. Sawyer and operated in the family until 1899, when it went bankrupt and was acquired by the American Woolen Company
The American Woolen Company is a designer, manufacturer and distributor of men’s and women’s worsted and woolen fabrics. Based in Stafford Springs, Connecticut, the company operates from the 160-year-old Warren Mills, which it acquired from Lo ...
. The mill complex was operated by American until it was closed and sold off in 1955. In the mid-1980s the complex was converted to residential use.[
]
See also
*
External links
Sawyer Woolen Mills records
at Baker Library Special Collections, Harvard Business School.
References
{{NRHP in Strafford County, New Hampshire
Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire
Second Empire architecture in New Hampshire
Buildings and structures in Dover, New Hampshire
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire
National Register of Historic Places in Strafford County, New Hampshire
American Woolen Company
Textile mills in the United States
Woollen mills