Charles A. Nelson , A. M., Waltham, past, present and its industries, with an historical sketch of Watertown from its settlement in 1630 to the incorporation of Waltham, January 15, 1739.

‘ [126] same year, he employed six English weavers, paying fourteen cents per yard for weaving, and in November following made sales of duck in Boston, No. 1 at 65 cents, and No. 2 at 58 cents per yard. This was probably the first Cotton Sail Duck ever made and sold in this country.’¹ The sheetings and shirtings sold for 42 cents a yard.

During the years 1811 and 1812 his sales in Boston increased, and he also introduced his goods into the southern markets. After the interruption of commerce by the war of 1812 Mr. Bemis had to transport his manufactured goods by his own teams overland to Baltimore, Alexandria, and even Richmond. ‘His teams would be gone on these expeditions several months, bringing back, as return freight, flour, tobacco, and other articles of southern products.’ One house in Baltimore made sales for him in 1812-13 of about $20,000, and another in 1815-16 of more than $21,000.

The brick building in which the English weavers worked is still standing. His duck was made of Sea Island cotton, which then cost 20 to 25 cents per pound, while the No. 1 duck during the war sold at nearly $1 per yard. He introduced the power loom in 1816,² and by this means reduced the cost of weaving from fourteen cents to nine-tenths of one cent per yard. In 1831 the price of duck was 35 cents per yard. Mr. Bemis discontinued the manufacture of duck in 1816, resumed it in 1830 and continued it till 1836 when he relinquished it altogether.

In the autumn of 1812 the venerable Seth Davis, now of West Newton, erected for Mr. Bemis a small brick building at the east end of the old mill for a gas-house, and for two years the factory was lighted with gas made from coal. This is believed to have been the first successful attempt to use gas in the United States. In 1798 a part of the celebrated manufactory of Boulton and Watt, at Soho, England, was lighted with gas, and in 1805 the cotton mills of Messrs. Phillips and Lea, at Salford, were lighted by Mr. William Murdock, of Redmuth in Cornwall, who in 1792 had