Successful Silk Production in Paterson, N.J.- Grimshaw Brothers- Part 1
Successful silk production in the United States began to emerge in Paterson, N.J., in the middle of the 19th century, largely due to a disastrous treaty between England and France, as described below. Many people previously employed in the silk industry in Macclesfield, England, which was the focal point of the industry in that country, emigrated to the United States and began to apply their skills in Paterson. Among them were the Grimshaw brothers who built an extremely successful business and employed about 700 people. Their story, which comes from a web site which tells the family history, is told below. This is an article about the history of Paterson which appeared in 1882.
GRIMSHAW BROTHERS
"This firm is composed of three brothers, John, George, Jr., and David H., natives of Macclesfield , England, celebrated the world over for its silk productions. The brothers came to this country with the entire family of ten persons several years ago, during the great depression that fell upon the silk industry as a consequence of the ruinous French treaty of 1860, known as the “Cobden treaty,” which admitted the products of French looms into England duty free. This gave the death blow to several branches of the English silk manufacture and reduced the silk weavers of Macclesfield, Manchester and other silk industrial centres to beggary by the thousand.
Whole blocks of buildings were left tenantless and mouldered to decay. In hundreds of instances houses were let to tenants rent free, with the object simply of their better preservation. It was while the old town was in this deplorable condition, a large portion of the inhabitants being fed daily at the public soup-houses, the silk mills closed, with costly machinery resting in disuse and a dismal future in prospect, that many who have since become notable Paterson manufacturers left the once thriving town and their native country behind and crossed the Atlantic in search of a place promising a reasonable compensation for their labor through the beneficent operations of a protective tariff on foreign silk products. But first of all, before taking this step, strong appeals were made to the government of England tin behalf of the languishing silk trade, asking that, in common justice, the home manufacturers might be placed on an equality in the market with their rivals across the Channel. But these appeals were in vain; hence the hegira that occurred in the years succeeding the adoption of the most unwise measure, a movement by which Paterson has profited to an immeasurable degree.
The brothers Grimshaw, all practical silk workers, started soon after their arrival in Paterson, in Pearl street, in a very small way, running but four or five looms; later they occupied a portion of the Arkwright Mill, where the business gradually but steadily expanded. About 1879 they purchased the splendid property which was known as the Greppo Mill, on very favorable terms as to price, and from that date have made numberless additions and improvements in premises, plant, power and operative force. The location is at the corner of Slater street and Dale avenue. The firm own additional frontage of 500 feet on Dale avenue by 100 feet on Slater street, on which they contemplate building largely in the near future. Their premises extend from Slater all the way to Green street. The extensive works, as they presently exist, comprise a building 100x50 feet, three stories, on Dale avenue; another, 200x50 feet, three stories, on Slater street; a dye-house, 100x50 feet, one story, on Prince street; and another dye-house 100x50 feet, one story, extending Eastward from the last-named to the Northern end of the first-named building, on Dale avenue, thus completing a hollow square in which enclosure are a machine shop, boiler and engine houses and other detached dependencies.