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In 1778 David Bemis, who had purchased 39 acres of land on the Watertown side1 of the river, and Dr. Enos Sumner, who then owned the land on the Newton side, constructed the original dam across Charles River, at Bemis Station, where the Aetna Mills now are, about one mile above the old mill in Watertown.
The next year a paper-mill2 was erected on the Newton side, of which David Bemis owned two-thirds, where he and his son, Captain Luke Bemis, carried on the business.
After his death, in 1790, his sons, Luke and Isaac, became full owners, and continued until the death of the latter in 1794.
Luke continued the business until 1821, when he sold out to his brother, Seth Bemis.
While running the paper-mill on the Newton side, David Bemis, previous to 1790, built and carried on a grist-mill and snuff-mill on the Watertown side.
The first mill on that side at that point.
At his death his two sons, Seth and Luke, inherited this property.
About 1796 the former purchased the interest of his brother, became the sole proprietor, and began to manufacture chocolate, and prepare dyewood and medicinal woods and roots for use. In 1803 he made additions to the old mill and commenced spinning cotton by machinery, making cotton warp, which was so superior to that spun by hand that the demand speedily became greater than the supply, and the business proved exceedingly profitable.
For several years previous to the establishment of the Waltham Factories, Mr. Bemis was somewhat extensively engaged in manufacturing Cotton Duck, Sheetings, Shirtings, Bed Ticking, Bagging, Cotton Yarns, &c., employing large numbers of weavers on hand looms.
‘In March 1809, he employed a Mr. Douglas to construct for him a Twisting Machine of 48 spindles.
In October of the ’
1 Probably a part of the grant to Abraham Browne, the first surveyor in the town, who had some acres here above ‘Dirty Green.’
2 The molds first used for the manufacture of paper by hand were all imported from England, and had to be sent there to be repaired. About 1800 Jacob Mead, of Waltham, an ingenious inventor, contrived a machine for weaving copper wire for paper molds. He did not procure letters patent, but kept it concealed, even from his family, in a chamber in his house, and repaired molds himself. After his death the machine, boxed up and unseen, was sold by his administrator to Thomas Miller, of Waltham, for $550, but new improvements in paper making machinery soon rendered it valueless.
Thomas Lewis, Landscape Photographs, 1879.
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