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The Quequechan River was an ideal location for the development of the textile industry during the era of water power for several reasons. First, it had an adequate flow of water for powering mill machinery but the flow was also modest enough to protect against flooding. Second, its bed was granite, allowing a firm footing for mills to be built directly over the river with their water wheels set in the stream bed. Third, the water privileges of the Quequechan were owned by a few descendants of Joseph and Richard Borden, who, by 1714, had gained ownership of the entire stream.

The Quequechan River was large enough to operate mills of the Rhode Island type, yet small enough to be developed by modest amounts of capital available along the Taunton River. The river was too small to be attractive to Boston capitalists, who were interested in the large horsepower privileges available along the major rivers of New England, such as the Merrimack River, the Connecticut River and the rivers of northern New England.

In addition to the reliable flow of water of the Quequechan River, its sound bedrock foundation, and its ownership in one family, the location of the river next to a navigable waterway, the Taunton River, made Fall River an ideal site for textile manufacturing. It was the combination of water power and coastal location—not one or the other---that accounted for the ascendancy of Fall River as a textile center.

In addition, Fall River’s location between Boston and New York and its proximity to Long Island Sound made it the best natural water privilege at tidewater anywhere in New England south of New Hampshire.

The capital used to build the first several textile mills in the city originated locally, coming principally from Fall River and from families from surrounding towns that made their fortunes during the Colonial era and later in ship building, trade with the West Indies and the Southern colonies and generally from the shipping business. Approximately 58% to 82% of the capital for these first textile ventures came from the towns of Somerset, Freetown (Assonet and Steep Brook), Dighton, and Fall River.

Thomas Russell Smith, in his book The Cotton Textile Industry of Fall River, states that Fall River textile mills had three advantages over mills north of Boston:

1. (1)  transportation costs for coal and cotton were somewhat lower than interior points or to the New Hampshire and Maine coasts;

2. (2)  climatic conditions favored the production of finer goods in coastal Southern New England because of the region’s higher relative humidity and more even temperature; and

3. (3)  Fall River’s location convenient to major cloth markets in New York City, Philadelphia and Boston and to print works in Rhode Island, New York and Pennsylvania.

The fact that Fall River was located on a navigable waterway, the Taunton River, with immediate coastal access, meant that coal could be delivered from the mines directly to the city entirely by water, reducing costs. Coal schooners brought coal from Maryland and West Virginia via Potomic River ports, then later from Norfolk and Newport News.

South of Cape Cod, coal delivery costs were considerably lower than north of the Cape because the dangers and time involved in rounding the Cape were avoided. Rail charges for the coal deliveries to Lowell and Lawrence were higher than for Fall River. Because of cheaper coal transportation to the city, the costs of manufacturing textiles in Fall River was 13% lower than in the inland Merrimack River centers of Lowell, Lawrence and Manchester, NH.

Climatic conditions also played an important role in textile production in the city. Fall River’s climatic conditions are similar to the English textile region of Lancashire. The city’s location south of Cape Cod and on the Taunton River and Mount Hope Bay provided a higher relative humidity and more even and milder temperatures. Only in the late 1880’s did artificial humidifiers become generally adopted.

Fall River’s location south of Cape Cod with immediate access to Long Island Sound allowed it to be nearer to finished cloth markets and to finishing centers, all accessible by water transportation. New York City was the premier selling market for textiles. With the rise of the Fall River Line, and its freighting capacity, orders could be placed at Fall River mills on one afternoon and arrive the next morning by boat in lower Manhattan, convenient to the city’s textile merchandising and garment districts. Few textile centers could match this service.

Fall River’s textile production was in finer printed cloths, and the city’s mills were able to accommodate the printing of calico cloth before 1855. After that time, however, the rapidly increasing growth of the mills in the city outstripped local printing capacity. Print works in Rhode Island, New York City and Philadelphia were easily accessible to Fall River manufacturers via water transportation.

By 1850, all of the available water privileges were used on the Quequechan River. Indeed, by 1855, the expansion of the 15 major water power sites in New England was complete. In 1843, the first steam cotton mill was built in Fall River; however, the early steam engines had the disadvantages of having unreliable speed. With the introduction of an improved steam engine invented by George Corliss in 1848, providing an engine that could control speed, steam power was revolutionized. As a result, steam power released mills in Fall River and elsewhere from the reliance on water power sites. Free of this constraint, mills in the city began expanding along the Taunton and Quequechan Rivers.

Between 1855 and 1865, the number of spindles in the city doubled and between 1865 and 1875 quadrupled. In 1860, Fall River surpassed Lowell as the largest textile producing center in the United States.

One of the more forgotten aspects of the Taunton River is its location as an iron center. Taunton (now Raynham) was the site of one of the earliest iron works in New England, established in 1656.

Early iron works existed along Fall Brook in East Freetown from at least 1784, where iron ore was taken from the bogs at Assawompset Pond, with fuel available from the East Freetown forests. When the foundry was enlarged and updated in 1818, higher quality pig iron from New Jersey was brought up the Taunton and Assonet Rivers by sailing vessels, then unloaded on Assonet wharves. Teams of oxen would then bring the iron to the furnaces in East Freetown, to a settlement soon called “Furnace Village.” Later, foundries were built on the Assonet River at Forge Pond and on Terry and Rattlesnake Brooks.

In the History of the Town of Dighton, Massachusetts by Helen H. Lane, a reference is made to the forge at Westville on the Three Mile River, a major tributary of the Taunton River at the Taunton/Dighton corporate line, operated by Hodijah Baylies. Baylies’ forge fabricated the huge anchor for the USS Constitution. Ten yoke of oxen were required to bring the anchor overland to South Dighton, then the highest point of navagation for major ships, where it was loaded on a ship and brought down the Taunton River to Boston.

In 1821, the Fall River Iron Works was established by Major Bradford Durfee and Colonel Richard Borden. Major Durfee had been a shipbuilder in New Bedford. He and Col. Borden operated a grist mill together at the foot of the Quequechan River and also constructed small vessels there. In addition, they experimented at the nearby blacksmith shop and gradually established a business manufacturing spikes, bars and rods. Gradually the business grew and in 1821, the Iron Works was established.

The Iron Works made hoops for New Bedford’s whale oil casks, rolled iron for the region’s shipbuilding industry and for general purposes, castings for machinery, and nails. It’s most important markets were within 20 miles of Fall River but also included New York City and up the Hudson River Valley. Until the advent of the railroad in 1845, the products of the Iron Works were shipped by water via the Taunton River and Mount Hope Bay.

Iron manufacturing required large amounts of power, large sites, economic handling of bulky materials and access to water transportation. The Iron Works flourished for several decades and provided substantial profits for investments in other industries, including textiles, steamships and textile machinery.

The group of Fall River entrepreneurs that controlled the Iron Works became known as the “Iron Works Group” and were instrumental in starting many other enterprises in the city. They initiated and controlled steamboat service to Providence and New York City from Fall River; the railroad connection to Boston; the Fall River Gas Works; several cotton mills; the American Print Works; a textile machinery company; banks; and various waterfront developments. By the 1850’s, the Iron Works Group was the dominant interest in the city, due to the greater scope and variety of its operations made possible by ownership of waterfront property as well as water power on the Quequechan.

The Iron Works was also situated where coastal water transportation and the railroads met, another of Fall River’s locational advantages.

Slade’s Ferry

In 1678, two years following the end of King Philip’s War, Henry Brightman began to row passengers for hire across the Taunton River from Fall River at the narrow point where the Brightman Street Bridge now stands. In 1680, William Slade began to do the same from a site that he owned in Somerset directly opposite from the Brightman wharf. For approximately 150 years, the Brightman and Slade families operated their row boats and later their sail boats as separate ferries, while using one another’s landings and terminals without charge.

With the institution of the Providence to New Bedford stage coach service in 1825---and therefore the need to have horses and coach make the Taunton River crossing---the Brightmans and the Slades began joint purchase and operation of the ferries. The first such ferry was a “horse boat” that was put into service on July 22, 1826. It measured 20 by 50 feet and was able to accommodate not only the stagecoach and horses but also several extra wagons or carriages.

As relayed by William A. Hart in his History of Somerset:

“Like the sail-power boat, the horse boat was flat-bottomed and square-ended. The horses worked on a circular treadmill, transmitting their power through their feet by pulling on the races by which they were hitched to a stationary beam. The treadmill was a circular floor that revolved as they drove it with their feet. This floor was geared to a shaft which drove paddle-wheels overhanging each side of the boat. The two horses faced in opposite directions. By a gear-shift the boat would go in the opposite direction without turning the horses around.”

In 1838, a second horse boat was placed into service. These boats had no rudder, but were steered with a long oar. Being flat-bottomed, keeping the vessel on course during high winds and strong tides could be a challenge. These horse boats continued in service until 1847, when the first steam ferry, the Faith, came into use. Eleven years later, in 1858, the Brightman/Slade families ordered another steam ferry, the Weetamoe.

The Weetamoe was built in Fall River by Joseph C. Terry, whose shipyard was on the Taunton River (at the location of the vacant wharf that is currently being used as a staging area for the new Brightman Street Bridge). Previous to owning the Fall River shipyard, Joseph Terry worked with James Hood in his Somerset Village shipyard on the Taunton River. Hood and Terry built some of the fastest and most famous of the clipper ships of that era, including the Raven and the Governor Morton.

William Hart mentions the amiable business relationship that the Slades and the Brightmans maintained during the almost 200 years of working the ferry together:

“When the Weetamoe was ready to leave the Brightman slip, in Fall River, Capt. Horace Slade went into the pilot house and became its commander while Capt. Cory D. Brightman, wearing a tall hat, went about the deck, collected the fares and put them in his pocket.

Presently the Weetamoe arrived at the Slade dock, or slip, on the Somerset side and loaded for Fall River. Now Capt. Slade came out of the pilot house and Capt. Brightman went in; and Capt. Slade walked the deck of the Weetamoe, collected the fares for the east-bound trip and put them in his pocket.”

The Weetamoe remained in service until 1876, when the Old Colony and Newport Railroad Company opened its bridge across the Taunton River to general traffic.

Early passenger travel on the Taunton River

During the early days of passenger travel on the Taunton River, trips were unscheduled. If a captain was sailing to Providence, Bristol, Newport or beyond to New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia, he would advertise the trip by word of mouth or placard several days in advance, giving the day of departure and the number of persons that could be accommodated. Some captains began to cater to this trade with attractive cabins and excellent meals. At first this trade was centered in Somerset, but as Fall River began to grow as a textile center following the War of 1812, it became the focus of passenger travel by water.

As this passenger business became more important and profitable, regularly-scheduled passenger packets became the norm, with vessels built for speed and passenger convenience. Regularly scheduled boats from Somerset and Fall River left for Providence, Bristol, Warren, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Savannah. William Lawton’s packet Industry from Somerset ran as far as Havana on regular schedules. The trip from Fall River to New York on a sailing packet took 24 hours one-way, with favorable weather. The packet left at 8:00 AM and the fare cost $2.00 to $5.00, depending on accommodations. Passengers slept on board.

It is noteworthy that ships from the Taunton River always went south, not north to Boston and other northern ports. This is because the trip north would require rounding Cape Cod on rough, open ocean water, with shifting shoals and subject to frequent fog. It was a long, hazardous trip. The trip south to New York, on the other hand, was by the protected inland waterway of Long Island Sound.

The first recorded steam boat in the United States was built by Captain Samuel Morey. It sailed down the Connecticut River and into Long Island Sound in 1794, as George Washington was beginning his second term. In 1807, Robert Fulton sailed the Clermont down the Hudson River. However, the loud, unreliable and smoky steam boats were not an overnight success. The early steamers burned so much wood that the stacks of cord wood left little room for freight. Occasionally, a sailing vessel would have to restock the steamers with wood in mid-trip.

The first regularly-scheduled steamboat in Mount Hope Bay was the Hancock, whose service began in September, 1828. The Hancock ran on alternate days from Fall River to Newport. In 1829, the steamer Experiment began service for a while between Newport and Taunton, with stops at Fall River.

However, the captains of the sailing packets were not about to be put out of business that easily, and for years they handily out-sailed the crude early steamers. Faster sailing boats were built on the Taunton River to compete with the steamers and the battle between sail and steam waged for 20 years. Combination sail and steamboats were an intermediary hybrid. Finally, the increasingly reliable steamboats could not be beaten on the longer runs, and Taunton River sailing vessels turned exclusively to freighting.

In 1845, the Fall River Branch Railroad was completed, connecting Fall River and Boston. This rail connection with Boston provided the opportunity for Fall River to be the connecting point for Boston to New York passenger service, with passengers from Boston taking the railroad to Fall River and then boarding a steamboat to New York City. In 1845, the Eudora became the first steamboat to operate from Fall River to New York on a regular schedule. It was 155 feet long and one of the first propeller-driven boats to operate on Long Island Sound. In 1849, the Eudora sailed for California with passengers for the gold rush and remained there.

In 1846, the Bay State Steamboat Company was organized with two steamboats as assets: the Bay State and the Massachusetts. From this beginning emerged the Fall River Line.

The Fall River Line

The origins---and success---of the Fall River Line are in geography. Continuous rail service between Boston and New York was possible as early as 1835. However, it was an uncomfortable, long trip with poor sleeping accommodations. The extremely wide mouth of the Thames River in Connecticut provided a formidable barrier for a rail crossing along the coastline and indeed was not crossed with a rail bridge until almost 1890. The railroad therefore had to travel inland to cross where the Thames was narrower. It was possible to take the train from Boston to Stonington, north of the Thames, then board a steamboat to New York City. However, that made for a split trip, and the Stonington service was soon eclipsed by Fall River.

The second geographic factor that favored Fall River was the peninsula of Cape Cod, which discouraged a direct water connection between Boston and New York City. The Fall River Line route was 228 miles, almost all of it on the inland waterway of Long Island Sound, coupled with a short rail trip to Boston. The trip around the Cape, however, was 337 miles and was over rough open waters that were subject to frequent and dangerous fogs. The length of the Fall River line trip lent itself to boarding the train in Boston at the end of the workday, getting on the boat at Fall River an hour later at dinnertime, and, following a comfortable night’s sleep, arriving in New York in the morning at the start of the business day.

Once the railroad arrived in Fall River from Boston in 1845, steamship service to New York City began immediately on the Eudora, the first steamboat to operate the Fall River/New York City route. The route was profitable from the beginning and, in 1846, the Bay State and the Massachusetts were added to the fleet. In 1854, the 342 foot-long Metropolis, a radical departure in marine construction, went into service. On June 9, 1855, the Metropolis sailed from New York City to Fall River in 8 hours and 21 minutes, a record that stood for fully 52 years!

When direct rail service became available from Lowell to Fall River, passengers inland from Lowell, West Concord, Framingham and Taunton traveled to New York via the Fall River Line.

The Fall River Line steamers grew larger and more lavish. The Metropolis was followed by the Newport (1865), her sister ship the Old Colony (1865), the Bristol (1867), the Providence (1867) and the Pilgrim (1883), the first iron hull on the Fall River Line. The Puritan, 419 feet in length, began service on June 17, 1889 and established a new standard for elegance. Its interior was designed in the Italian Renaissance style with gold inlaid detailing. The Plymouth followed in 1890; the Priscilla (1894) was then the world’s largest sidewheeler at 440 feet; the Providence in 1905 and, in 1908, the “Queen of the Sound,” the elegant Commonwealth.

The Fall River Line was considered the way to travel from New York to Boston, Newport or Cape Cod. Passengers on its “floating palaces” included presidents James Polk, Millard Fillmore, Ulyssus S. Grant, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Presidents Hardy, Coolidge and Hoover were among the lines passengers, but not while they were in office.

Wealthy New Yorkers that were regular passengers to Newport included the Vanderbilts, Astors, Belmonts and Rockefellers, among others. Prominent Philadelphia families using the line included the Lippencotts, Clothiers, Whartons and the Buffams. Pennsylvania coal magnate E.J. Berwind traveled the Fall River Line on his way to his Bristol estate Blythwold. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughs, General John J. Pershing and aviatrix Amelia Earhart, among many other notables, were passengers.

One of the recorded Fall River Line legends is the story of Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung. Freud and Jung had been involved for years in a very public disagreement over the validity of their respective theories of psychoanalysis. The story has it that, while traveling on the Fall River Line from New York to Cape Cod for a conference, the two prominent psychoanalysts resolved their differences and came to an accommodation over one another’s theories. Such was the soothing quality of the Fall River Line!

While the Fall River Line is thought of principally as a passenger line, it was also a freighter service. This daily freight service to New York City provided enormous advantages to Fall River as a textile center. Raw cotton was brought to Fall River from New York on the liners and finished cloth returned to the garment district. As noted earlier, an order for cloth from New York to Fall River could be placed on an afternoon and be delivered at the foot of the garment district the next morning. Major inland textile centers such as Manchester, Lowell and Lawrence had no such advantage.